


Perseverance

by Astasabershadow



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Naruto
Genre: Don't know much about Taki's people, Fluff and Angst, Fuu has magic, Fuu is not a girl, Fuu of Takigakure is Harry Potter, I hate Obito, I love Obito, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm very confused where he's concerned, Kaguya Ootsutsuki is like super badass here, Like, Like for realz, Lots of OC's, M/M, Multi, She's gonna ve really busy soon, Slow Burn, Things will not be easy for Harry, War, You guys will hate me i tell you, but only when i reach the middle of this fanfic, i don't even know how the two will get together yet, i hate myself for what i have planned, like really slow burn, there will be major character deaths
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2018-12-14 19:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 57,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11789913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astasabershadow/pseuds/Astasabershadow
Summary: Harry wakes up in the body of a four year old human sacrifice. He soon realizes that he had it far too easy with Voldermort.............................Having an Organization of freaks coming after the Beast sealed inside you is no joke, having a Beast made of pure energy sealed inside you is mind bogging. It gets pretty serious though, when some ancient moon goddess wants to devour you whole.Honestly, he would've preferred doing paper work than this. Its too troublesome.





	1. Chapter 1

The pain almost splits his head in half but again, occlumency is his saving grace.

He only 'feels' the world with his soul for a second....one second, but it feels like an eternity. The sensory overload is unbearable, and only because there is magic... Or some form of divine energy floating around the very air around him, its in everyone in the whole hospital, burning, brighter more in some than others, its in the people outside his window, walking down the street, in their houses, at markets, in fields, fields made of that same bright energy, it stretches out to the forest surrounding the settlement, where Harry can feel every individual tree, burning with energy, then stretches out to the even larger tree perched over the village as well as the waterfall surrounding the whole area, and Harry can feel every individual drop of water, imbued with that energy.

He can't even scream. His muscles lock up and he just bares through it, with the help of his occlumency walls, which he hides his subconscious behind (though he can still very much feel the pain).

He comes back to hours later in the same position, his muscles ache fiercely and so does his back and he generally feels like shit. But he has a new awareness to his surroundings, one he's never had before.

He can tell that he's being watched carefully by three pairs of eyes, hidden around the room. Although he can't see them, he knows where they are. He doesn't look in their direction though, but calmly falls back onto the bed and closes his eyes.

He's very far from home. In fact, he's probably not even on the same earth. But dwelling on such would only work to confuse or hurt him, all he can do is resign himself to rest. He will get to the bottom of this as soon as he gets out of the damn hospital.

 

 

His sleep is fitful and he wakes up hours later feeling as exhausted as when he feel asleep. He only stays up long enough to eat the warm broth left on the counter at the side of his bed, before falling back under.  
This goes on for the next three days before the nurses start getting concerned. They poke and prode him, furiously scribbling away at reports. Some of them can make their hands glow a pale green (had briefly freaked him out, but he's used to it now), Harry thinks its probably some mystical healing arts, because he may feel like shit when they touch him with their glowey hands, but he always feels less tired after their sessions.

"Is he alright?" The young man, Shibuki-sama, he's recently learned, asks.

"He's doing much better. I've never met a patient who responds this well to chakra transfusion. To be completely honest I've never seen a person survive without chakra as long as he did. It doesn't make any sense.

But we have good news. His coils aren't as irreparably damaged as we believed. I don't really know if his..... tenant is just healing its host, or if he has some form of kekkie genkai that boosts cell regeneration."

The Head nurse, Katsuki-san as she insisted he call her, says.

"Is he going to be able to mold chakra then?"

"It is expected so with his level of recovery. I expect he'll be be strong enough to do more than lie in bed tomorrow, in fact, I was thinking of discharging him in two days."

Harry watches silently as they discuss him. Its all they've done since he woke up. He still doesn't understand much of what they're saying, but he's filing information away for later use.

 

 

He's out in four days instead of two and breaths a sigh of relief. The hospital was very boring and Harry hated every moment of it. He was left to his thoughts far too long.  
The man, Shibuki-sama walks beside him. Every once in a while he stops to greet someone, its apparent he's a very important person in this community.

A glance around shows that the place is in shambles, there is a great amount of damage that was done to a great number of the buildings which are in the process of being rebuilt.

This must be what the seven tails rampage caused, at least according to what pieces Harry can connect from what he's heard.  
'I wonder who or what the seven tails is, and why I'm connected to them.' He thinks.

 

 

 

 

He knows he isn't Shibuki-sama's anything, the old man from back when he woke up had said that he was the youngest child at the orphanage, so Harry is a little confused that he's not returning there, but instead is being brought to Shibuki-sama's lavish house, (at least it seems like his house, there are paintings of him around the place). Maybe this is something that involves the eight tails, yet again.

It looks like a mixture of a house and an office, because there are uniformed men and women entering and leaving the place whilst they walk towards it, each of them holding a scroll of some sorts in their hands. The whole architecture looks like something out of a Japanese movie, with events taking place during the times of emperors and empresses. He's a bit confused about some things.

"Something on your mind?" Shibuki-sama asks, looking down at him.

"I was just taking note of the differences in infrastructure. The building in front of us seems a lot more traditional than any other building I've seen so far."

"Mmmh, that's all thanks to our the Head woman before my father. She felt the village was progressing too fast for her likes, taking on more modern values, when this village was built and uphelp solely on our traditions. She wanted to keep that tradition alive, so she decided that the Head Monument would be rebuilt in a traditional style."

They walk on a bit in silence before Shibuki-sama speaks again. "You haven't asked me anything.....about, well, anything that's happened."

"I wasn't aware that was on the table."  
Shibuki-sama sighs, coming to a stop. "Fū, you're a jinchuriki, a human sacrifice."

"What was I sacrificed to?"

"You were sacrificed for the village." He says this, going down on his knees infornt of Harry.

"There are Nine Tailed Beasts, chakra constructs of great terror. One of them, the Seven Tails attacked our village just two weeks ago and there wasn't anyone in the village strong enough to stop it, myself included."  
"What did you do?"

"We sealed it away in a live host. The only one we could find was—"

"Me." Harry interrupts. He honestly does not know how to feel about that.

"Yes." He says remorsefully. "I'm very sorry it had to be you, but there was no one else and the village —"

"I understand."

Shibuki-sama sighs again, standing up. "Do you know what it means being a jinchuriki?"

"No."

"It means that you are our shield, you protect us. Takigakure is a village all about secrecy and segregation, its been this way for many years. Once in a while though, things happen, things similar to the Seven Tails rampage.  
You are our shield, your very presence protects the village.

The Tailed Beasts keep a balance in power amongst the Great villages, and now that we have one of our own, we are protected. But as you are, Villages like Kumogakure which have ambitious leaders will try and steal you so that they can make you their soldier.  
We cannot let that happen, and neither can you. You need to grow stronger so as to protect your people and yourself."

 

"I understand." He does not understand, maybe to some extent, but he does not understand much.

 

"You are our shield, our protector. Those who know it will appreciate you just as I do. Those who don't will spit on your name, but that's alright. Not everyone is supposed to like you What I want you to do is make friends, make bonds, not many, just a few and cherish them. I promise you'll grow strong in no time. You know know why? Well that's because true strength comes from the overwhelming will to protect those you love."

He says remorsefully.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> continuation of my editing

Because of his jinchuriki status, he was named a ward of the village Headman, and thus would be living very close to the man's private quarters.

At first Harry never left his room, he was faced with a dilemma after all. He didn't know who Fū was or how he ended up in the poor kids body. He didn't know what Fū liked or didn't, didn't know any of his friends....nothing. 

But then after some few days of going stir crazy, he threw caution to the wind. According to Shibuki, who's name isn't really Shibuki-sama, because -sama is just a formality that symbolises the highest regard or respect , he wasn't really much under the village council's radar before he became a jinchuriki, so Harry figured he could act which ever way he liked, but not too suspiciously because they could do a follow up on his behavior by asking the matrons at Fū's former residence.

The sad part was that Harry had no idea how to act like a kid. Oh he'd watched his own, but it was completely different. Watching and doing that something was easier said than done. 

He just didn't know how to act like a kid. Voldermort, Dumbledore and the fucking Dursleys had made sure of that.  
But he soon forgot about that problem as well, because he finally remembered his kids, who he'd forgotten because he was a shitty father and that hit him hard....but also, made him want to find a way home as quickly as he could. 

 

But he didn't even know where he would start.

 

 

"Is there a library somewhere around here?" He asks Shibuki five mornings later, when simply wondering the village does him no good. 

"Why do you ask?" The man questions, halting his chewing.

"I wanted to read a bit."

"There are books in your bedroom." Shibuki says, confused.

"I don't want to read fairy tales. I want books, real books with solid information."

"Those books might be a bit too difficult for a four year old to understand."

Harry raises a brow at him. "We both know I'm no regular four year old."

"True," he says slowly, rubbing his chin. "What do want books for? You know you can ask me anything, right? I'm not just the Headman, but also one of the best scholars in the village."

"I'll ask for help when I need it. Right now I just want to know where the library is." 

 

Luckily for him, Shibuki drops it and has him led to the library.

 

He randomly picks books as he strolls through the large room, not even checking what they're about. 

Harry never claimed to be good at doing research, he left that to Hermione. He quickly realises that maybe he went about it the wrong way, when the books he's reading have numerous pages where chakra is mentioned. Harry doesn't even know what chakra is.

"What the hell is chakra!?" He exclaims in frustration, pulling st his green hair. (Seriously though, the hair colours he's seen in the past two weeks. What is up with this world?)

"Its a mixture of physical and spiritual energy." A young boy, five or more years older than Harry....or is Fū, says as he sits on the opposite side of Harry's table with a book in hand.

"Eh.....?"

"Physical energy flows through our body. We gain it from eating foods rich in carbohydrates, fats, and protein and training our bodies. Spiritual energy is concentrated in our minds, we get it through meditating and sleeping. Our chakra coils, located at our centre of mass when we're standing, or our abdomen, is where spiritual and physical energy are combined to form chakra."

Harry blinks at the boy. "Ok. Why is it mentioned all the time?"

"This is a shinobi library and we primarily rely on chakra based techniques. How do you not know that?" The boy asks when Harry's look of confusion does not fade.

"What the hell are shinobi?" Harry asks. "How old are you?" the boy asks, looking perplexed. "Old enough." 

The boy sniffs. "I graduated from the academy last year and my family was very proud." A pause."You must be from an important shinobi clan."

"Why do you say that?"

"You must be from a very high ranking clan if they let you in here. Not just anyone is allowed entry after all. My name is Tsugaro and I'm the youngest son of Kazami clan's Head."

"Fū, nice to meet ya."

"And your clan?"

"Never met them before. I'm guessing it doesn't happen everyday that someone your age graduates from the academy."

Tsugaro gives him a stink eye for abruptly changing the subject, but the look on his face tells Harry he'd rather talk about graduating early than clan politics. "It doesn't happen much in Taki, I'm the first to graduate early in last fifty years."

"Really? Does this village have a shortage of smart people or something?" Harry questions, momentarily forgetting about the book he was reading.

"No, it has a large influx of smart people, especially civilians. It just doesn't have any that are extraordinary." The boy explains. "Our village has a strict regime for academy students. Its so hard that only a few people without prior training make it into the shinobi ranks. Most of our shinobi are made up of shinobi clan memebers, as they get training before entering the academy."

"That doesn't seem fair." Harry says, folding his arms and sitting forward. 

"That point has been raised before, and our previous Headman took measures to increasing the passing rate of our academy. He opened up a dojo where civilian children with interests in becoming shinobi would be given basic taijutsu training, diets and training exercise regimes to keep in shape."

"What is taijutsu?" 

"Hand to hand combat," the boy says after a pause. "They would be assisted in finding their chakra and developing their chakra networks, given basic ninjutsu and genjutsi training, as well as taught basics such as hunting and preparing meat, identifying plants safe to eat and those good for making poisonous traps as well as many other survival methods that shinobi clans teach their children."

"What are ninjutsu and genjutsu?"

"I'm guessing your interest in the shinobi arts is recent."

"Never would've guessed it myself." Harry snarks.  
With a sniff, Tsugaro goes to explain ninjutsu and genjutsu as best as he can with Harry hanging on to every single word he says.

"Fascinating." He breaths out, because chakra is amazing, if not more so than magic. "Say, you wouldn't mind teaching me all of this on your free time, would you?"

"Unfortunately, most of my time will be spent doing missions with my teammates, and I'm not allowed to teach anyone clan techniques, which happen to take up most of my repertiore.

But I suppose I can help you with a few things. The rest you'll just have to learn elsewhere." The nine year old says with a sniff. "I'll meet you outside tomorrow morning, five o'clock sharp. If you're even a minute late you can forget about me helping you. I have better things to do with my time."

 

Overall, its a well spent morning.

 

 

 

True to his word, Tsugaro is waiting for him outside the Headman's monument looking as if it isn't five o'clock in the morning the next day. Harry can barely keep his eyes open, having spent the previous day devouring any piece of information he could get hands on about chakra. 

"Since this is probably the first time you'll be doing any sort of physical exercise, I'm going to ease you into it. Today, we'll take a walk around the village to gouge your stamina, then tomorrow and for the rest of the week we'll be pushing you past those limits. Next week we'll take a jog, with the same purpose of gouging your strength and pushing your limits, then we'll move up from there. Got it?"

"Yeaw...." He says with a yawn. 

"Good, now to be productive," he says, starting the walk. "I'll be teaching you a bit about the village, because I know you're clueless, its written all over your face."

"Heyw," he says with another yawn, trying to act offended even though he's really grateful the kid is helping him.

"Takigakure is a shinobi village, first and foremost and it is located in the Land of Waterfalls. Despite not being one of the great shinobi villages,—"

"Which are?" Harry interrupts.

"Konohagakure, Kumogakure, Sunagakure, Iwagakure and Kirigakure."

"I'm confused," the green haired boy asks, ribbing his chin. "do all those names have a particular meaning?"

Tsugaro takes a deep visible breath looking as if it will pain him to continue speaking. "They are the Hidden Leaf, the Hidden Cloud, the Hidden Sand, the Hidden Stone and the Hidden Mist respectively. They are located in one of each of the five great countries. Konoha in the Fire country, Kumo in the Lightning country, Suna in the Wind country, Iwa in the Earth country and Kiri in the Water country. There are other countries of course, but those five are the best, the greatest.  
Takigakure is primarily made of shinobi with Water and Earth Release. Some are capable of using Wind instead of Earth Release, and the rest have all sorts of Kekkei Genkai."

"I've been meaning to ask what that is."

"Bloodline limits. One of our clans, the Akurai, have the ability to bend light and use it for various things, which is a Kekkei Genkai. An ability that develops over time, with nothing mystical about it. Its all genetics and the ability to adapt to a situation. A good example is the Kazekage clan from Suna, who have the Wind release and magnetic release. Over time, they've adapted to using the desert around them as a weapon. Some can bend gold, the current Sandiame Kazekage being a good example, others iron, platinum and many other minerals found in the desert sand.

Our village is in possession of numerous scrolls depicting Forbidden techniques . These are all kept locked in a special vault, access to which is granted to only the highest-ranking people in the village.  
Despite us not being very big and powerful, the village's population is still fairly high. This comes from the fact that many people prefer this village due to the tranquility here, although that has slightly changed in recent times due to the industrialization and modernization process that is taking place. It aims to help Takigakure in catching up with the other shinobi Hidden Villages, especially those of the Five Great Nations.  
Our village is surrounded by four other nations—"

"And I'm guessing the state of the village is a normal occurrence?" Harry asks, looking around as they pass by broken down buildings in the process of rebuilt.

"It has never been successfully invaded. Our gaurd rotation is made of our best Water Release users and sensory type shinobi, and with it surrounded by that moat and the waterfall," Tsugaro says, pointing at the large bodies of water, "no one gets in unless we say so."

"What is a Sandiame Kazekage?"

"A Kazekage, meaning Wind Shadow, is the title given to the leader of Sunagakure. Sandaime means third in succession since the establishment of the village. Each Hidden village has a Kage. Konoha has the Hokage, Kumo has the Raikage, Iwa has the Tsuchikage and Kiri has the Mizukage."  
"You know a lot."

"So I've been told." He sniffs.

"You sniff a lot. Is there something wrong with your nose?"

Tsugaro glares down at him before sniffing in derision. "Its a bad habit, I know."

"You never did tell me why you agreed to help me." Harry says, coming to a halt, his breath coming out in huffs. 

"I found a kindred soul in you. I was your age when I first stepped into a library. I may not have had your level of understanding, but I was curious about everything as you are. You're smart and spending time with isn't half as bad as with anyone else my age."

"But I'm half your age." Harry observes.

"Even better. You're more than likely to get more good qualities if you hang around me."

 

Harry doubted that, the little guy honestly reminded him o Tom Riddle. But maybe he could teach the kid how to be more human, and less of a stuck up encyclopedia.

 

 

 

He doesn't notice it at first, because in the following months his head is stuck in book, but people tend to go quiet when he passes them.

Its a bit unnerving, walking into a noisy market and having the whole place go quiet. He soon avoids crowded place like a plaque. Its not always possible, because sometimes Tsugaro takes him training, and some training needs to be done in crowded places, like what they're doing now for example. Picking out off-duty shinobi from the busy market street.

"Twelve o'clock." He mutters, perched on the roof of a grocery store, Tsugaro seated on his right. Dark haired man, early thirties. He's in a blue T-shirt and brown pants."

"What about him?"

"His eyes keep twitching all over the place."

"He might just have a degenerative disease that make him goggly eyed."

"Yeah, that would be the case, if his right hand wasn't twitching towards his back whenever someone bumps into him. Plus, he's all tense."

"You're surprisingly good at this, even though you barely looked up from that book." 

Harry spares him a glance, before going back to residing. "Chakra is a very interesting subject."

"Its more than that. You have this look in your eyes, determination."

"I'm determined to learning all that I can about chakra." Harry says, closing the book and jumping down from the roof onto the street.

"Are you sure that's all? You haven't even found your chakra yet, but you're already knee deep in obscure studies about it." Tsugaro says as he follows.

"Well, I'm actually curious......." Harry trails off as the market place goes quiet.

"Demon." Someone says, glaring venom at Harry.

"Fū?" Tsugaro questions, a hint of steel apparent in his voice as he looks around them.

"Monster." Another calls.

"He's not a monster!" Tsugaro shouts back, coming to his defence. 

"You killed my wife."

"You took my children from!"

"My whole family is gone because of you!"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Harry says, confused and starting to get really scared.

"Go to hell where you came from!"

"You monster!"

"You took them from me you monster!"

"I'm sorry!" He shouts back, not even sure why he's apologizing.

"Die!"

A mob had formed around Harry, Tsugaro having been shoved away from the centre. The word 'die' had spurred the more malicious members of the mob to pick stones and hurl them at Harry.

The man turned boy dodged as best as he could, but even with the training he'd been getting from Tsugaro, he was still only just a bit fast. Some stones barely nicked him, but some hit home, many hit home real hard.

 

 

He was in so much pain at some point, that he thanked the gods when he lost consciousness, all the while, he could hear Tsugaro's furious screams as he tried to fight through the mob to get to him.


	3. Chapter 4

"We have got to stop meeting like this,"

Katsuki says when he opens his eyes.

Harry groans when the green light, a norm in Taki, shines directly into his eyes. "This is the second time I've been brought to you care, lady."

"Don't snark at me boy," she growls, gently pushing him back down when he tries to sit up. "And this isn't the second or last time you'll wake up to this face." 

"The horror." He says dryly, making the older woman smile at him. "I thought I'd be in much more pain than this when I woke up." He observes.

"Those are the joys of pain killers and medical ninjutsu of course."

"Eh....." Is the sound that comes out of Harry's mouth when Tsugaro comes into his line of vision.

"How're you feeling?" He says, leaning close to Harry.

"Brat," Katsuki says, gently shoving the nine year old. "I'm still working here."

"What are you doing here?" Harry asks, honestly confused. 

Tsuagaro frowns. "I'm here to check up on you."

"The brat wouldn't leave your side. At all." Katsuki growls. Harry's feels like she does that a lot. "Even his damn mother couldn't get him to leave."

"I wanted to be here when you woke up. What those people did was unacceptable, but what's even more unbelievable is that they aren't going to pay for it." The nine year old says, a bit of indignation and anger slipping into his tone. 

"Shibuki-sama has always been a bit too lenient when it comes to punishing civilians." Katsuki says, sticking a thermometer in Harry's mouth. "But I can't say I blame him much. This village isn't just made up of shinobi after all. Civilians make up much of population and with our tame number of shinobi, they bring in most of the income. The Civilian council has a lot of power and Shibuki-sama might just be trying to keep the peace."

"That may be the case, but the civilian council must realise what the people did to Fū is inhuman!" Tsugaro argues, raising his voice.

"No, they probably don't." Harry says. "They know I'm a jinchuriki, so to them I'm probably less than human."

"Human sacrifice......" Tsugaro says, a frown on his face. "Why do you say you're a human sacrifice?"

"Because the Seven Tails is sealed within me." Harry says, watching closely for the boy's reaction.

"That actually explains a lot. Of course they'd find a vessel for a chakra construct. Chakra is basically energy and energy cannot be destroyed." The boy then gives Harry's bondaged body a once over, something bitter brewing behind his obsidian gaze. "Jinchuriki, huh? How fitting." He spits out.

"I'm guessing by your reaction you can tell the difference between myself and the seven tails." Harry says, feeling relief seep into his muscles. Tsugaro is probably his only friend.... And greatest source of information. Loosing him would be devastating.

"Please, don't rate my intelligence against that of those infernal civilians." The nine year old sniffs. "If you put a kunai in a sealing scroll, the sealing scroll does not become a kunai. It just becomes a useful sealing scroll. The same applies with you, but in this case you're the vessel in the sealing scroll's place whilst the Seven Tails is the kunai."

"Huh," is the sound that comes out of Katsuki's mouth. "I never really thought about it that way." A pause."You know, it's understandable now why you have that stick shoved so far up your butthole. At least you don't act like an entitled peacock" Harry snorts at how much emphasis she puts on the 'cock'."without reason. Can't say the same about the rest of your Clan though."  
Harry laughs out loud when Tsugaro visibly bristles. "Why you...."

"Anyway I gotta leave. I have patients to see and other boring things medics do to do." She interrupts, gathering Harry's chart and walking out of the room.

 

"My mother really did try to drag me out of here. She and the rest of family are wary of you. They don't approve of our friendship, but it has a lot of more benefits than disadvantages, politically speaking of course. You are Shibuki-sama's ward." Tsugaro says after a long pause, his right brow raised.

"Why...." Harry trails off, not really knowing how to word his question.

"Everyone knows something in this village, but no one my age knows or even tries to know as much as I do. Makes it to hard make friends."

"So I'm your only friend then. Is that why you haven't abandoned me?" Harry teases.  
"Partially." Tsugaro says, honest to gods smiling for the first time since Harry's met him. "The other reason is because you're intelligent and bound to become legendary one day. I may have a mountain of pride, but I look forward to mooching off of your reputation."

Harry bursts into a loud booming laughter, as loud as his squeaky four year old voice can manage.

"Stop," Harry wheezes. "My ribs hurt like a....um..."

"What? A bitch." Tsugaro says, a peculiar look on his face. "Fū, has anyone ever told you how abnormal you are? Especially for an almost infant."

"Please don't ever say the B word." Harry wheezes out between laughter. "It sounds wrong. Very wrong."

"Someone has to wonder what they're teaching the children back at the orphanage if they're anything like you."

 

 

 

"You can not be serious right now." Tsugaro grounds out, pinching his brow so hard it makes Harry wince a bit. "We've been at this for three weeks. I know you can meditate, I know you can focus. Why can't you find your chakra?"

"Maybe I don't have any."

"You'd be dead if that was the case." The nine year old grinds out. Harry's starting to think this boy is a slave driver. After his stint with Taki's lovely civilian mob, Tsugaro had made it his life's mission to get Harry in top shape.  
The minute Katsuki had deemed him healthy, Tsugaro had started his killer training regime on poor Harry.

 

The nine year had and still was, teaching him a taijutsu kata he'd gleaned from a book in the library(seriously, the kid was insane smart), that primarily focused on kick strikes because at this point Harry punched like a four year old. Harry had proved to be a quick learn and could hold his own against Tsugaro for forty seconds (which is a lot of time to kill someone in the shinobi world).

 

They'd gotten to the point where enhancing his moves with chakra was a must, so Tsugaro had started Harry on finding his chakra and letting it flow through his body, but he was doing a horrible job at it. It was a source of frustration for the both of them.  
With a calming breath. "What is it that you feel when you dig deep within yourself?" 

"Nothing...?" Harry says, shrugging.

"That's not possible. You're obviously lying to me Fū." The boy says, getting angry. "So whatever it is you're feeling inside, just yank the damn thing into your metaphysical palms, got it. Yank it and let it free."

Harry didn't need a degree in the study of chakra to know that that was a bad idea. But he understood why Tsugaro was so frustrated about his predicament. It didn't take this long to find one's chakra and yet Harry was on his third week.

 

Harry had already found his chakra, had found it only minutes after getting into meditation the first time Tsugaro had suggested the exercise. 

 

He was trying to figure out what exactly was going on inside his body because he'd found his chakra right where his magic was, in his heart. Tsugaro and many books from the library had described chakra as cool and warm at the same time, but it didn't feel like that to Harry at all.

 

No, his chakra felt like a solar flare, a scalding hot summer breeze. It burned him, but at the same time he found comfort in that burn. He knew there was an odd mixture going on inside of him, because when he focused hard enough he could pick his chakra apart. His magic was there, a peculiar shade of emerald, dancing between physical and metaphysical. His own chakra was there as well, vibrant curlean curled around his magic. But there was this last chakra, a chakra that burned corrosively when he felt it. It turned his chakra and magic sickly yellow, and then changed the whole mixture into something Harry was afraid to prod further. The solar flare.

"Maybe you should step away." He warns, but Tsugaro just raises a brow at him.

"Your chakra as it is right now could hardly hurt a fly. Just let it go." He growls.  
Harry sighs. He did warn the guy.

What happens next is something the whole village feels.

 

It starts with the air getting heavy. Tsugaro's aggressive stance slowly goes cautious, his eyes narrowing further on the meditating four year old. He takes a step back, then two when the ground beneath Harry starts to protest, breaking apart and developing spiderweb cracks.

"Fū." He says, taking four more steps back.  
It doesn't help him much though as in the next second, a powerful gust of hot wind leaves Harry's body, travelling in every direction, sweeping Tsugaro metres away, tilting trees, breaking down some unstable buildings, blowing away market tents and street vendor's umbrellas and knocking down the people in its way.

 

Tsugaro tries to stand after hitting the ground with a painful thump, but his muscles lock up tightly as cold icy terror runs down the length of his back. 

The amount of killer intent in the air is enough to have him hallucinating his death....his very horrific and painfull death. Its enough to have every civilian and genin in close vicinity imagining their own death.

 

Meanwhile, Harry is feeling just as happy as he did the day he held his wand for the first time. The feeling of his chakra magic energy thing moving through his body, curling around his soul and organs, leaves him weightless, as if he can fly. It isn't until he opens his eyes and sees just what's going on around him does he realise that maybe it doesn't feel as good for everyone as it does him.

 

"Shit."

 

 

 

"That thing shouldn't even have to chakra to begin with. I thought you said its chakra producing parts had been damaged. We could feel the Seven Tails chakra all over the village!"

 

Harry doesn't know how long this argument had been going on. All the village council members had been called to a meeting after Harry's little display of power, both Civilian (made up of Civilian Clan Heads) and Shinobi council (which was made up of Shinobi Clan Heads) and more than half of them were not impressed. Some were seriously gunning for his head.

 

"That was the case, yes, but it seems his chakra coils have repaired themselves." Shibuki says, blatantly lying. "I wasn't aware of this and neither was he. All Fū was doing was trying to find a better way to protect himself from the people looking to hurt him."  
"A lot of people were reported to having second degree burns, and nothing the medics do can heal them." An elderly woman from the civilian council says. "If him using his chakra reaults in such, then maybe it should be locked away."

 

"I disagree." Fubatsu, Tsugaro's father, says. Harry isn't really that much surprised. It may look like they're discussing him to others, but he can clearly see the game of politics being played. "Imagine training and perfecting such a force, then sending it in the direction of our enemies. Taki would become a Great Village."

 

"This isn't about power Kazami," an elder spits."this is about the well being of the people of this village. You should've killed the Jinchuriki the moment it was made to avoid such problems, it would've kept the peace in this village."

"I think you're forgetting that that over there is a human being." Fubatsu says pointing at Harry, quietly, but his voice carries across the meeting hall, silencing everyone. 

"One human being is nothing compared to the many lives in this village." Someone, a male Harry's never seen before says. To be fair he hasn't seen pretty much most of the people in the room.

"But what about his peace? Where is it?" A lady, strikingly tall, with one of the prettiest faces Harry's ever seen, says. He thinks she might be from the Tsuyugimo Clan, what with her pale blue eyes. They're only found on the ice release members of the village after all. "Don't forget that we took this child, from a not so fortunate, but good life and we dropped this great burden on him. The least we can do is respect him, protect him, care for him because his burden is like no other."

The silence that follows is tense, very tense.  
"Thank you Ama." Shibuki says. "I will make sure this doesn't happen again, so you can all rest easy. I will personally see to his training, in a controlled environment where no one can get hurt."

Before Shibuki can even adjourn the meeting, many of the civilians are moving out of the hall, followed by a few Clan Heads.

"That went well." The man says, sarcastically.

"They won't bother you for awhile after that. Just make sure the little one stays out of trouble." Ama says, standing up. "Until we meet again, hopefully, under much better circumstances." She says to the room at large, gracefully walking out of the hall.

"You have some explaining to do young man." Shibuki says, sternly, looking down at Harry disapprovingly.

 

"Oh, sorry!" Tsugaro says, having bumped a Clan Head whilst rushing into the room. "Fū!" He calls, panicked.

Harry winces when he sees the bandages covering some of his exposed skin.

"I'm so so sorry!" The boy says, looking on the verge of tears. His eyes are puffy and red rimmed, meaning he'd cried before coming here. "I shouldn't have insisted you do that, I only wanted you safe. I'm sorry I got you in trouble." 

 

A sharp look from his father has Tsugaro straightening up and the tears in his eyes drying quickly. Harry can see how much effort its taking the nine year old to not just cry.

 

"Its alright Tsugaro. Everythings alright." Harry says, reassuring the boy. He can see some difficult years ahead of him because of the damn council, but there's nothing much he can do about it. His main goal is getting home and he'll go through anything and anyone to get there.

 

 

 

Its around two, almost three years later that Harry learns his first elemental jutsu. He's just a few months away from turning seven and three weeks from entering the academy.

He'd missed his chance to go in at six years because he'd been in the hospital again, courtesy of Taki's lovely civilian population. He'd taken two full weeks to recover and the academy's Headmaster had vehemently disagreed him attendance. Harry was no fool, most if not everyone in the village knew how smart he was. He hung around Tsugaro for heavens sake. That man had just been plain cruel and unfair.

 

"Snake, ram, boar, monkey, horse....tiger?"

"That's correct." Says Fubatsu, with a raised brow. "Be more confident. Fire release is more effective on those who have mastered themselves."

"Eh.....why?" 

"Because it feeds off of your emotions. Kazami in general, are pationate. We feel emotions more intensely than the average person. It clouds our judgment most of the time, but luckily a majority of us have the Fire release as our secondary chakra nature. When we make fire, even in battle, we are able to fight better after, centre ourselves. You must be able to use your emotions to fuel the jutsu."

"I guess having a Fire style jutsu or two in your arsenal comes in handy during stressful situations."

"Not really. Fear has its uses, for one, it makes you cautious. But it can also disrupt your jutsu. The same goes with frustration and impatience." The man says, adjusting Harry's shaky tiger hand sign. "Fire release feeds of anger, excitement, bloodlust. It also feeds of love, protectiveness, determination. But it requires patience, it requires you trusting and guiding the fire calmly to do what you want it to do, or you literally get burned."

"Why can't I just stick to Wind release? Everyone uses it in the village."

"Fire release will be you advantage. Your enemy will expect you to be a wind or water release user." 

 

Harry wasn't really sure why the man was teaching him a jutsu that his clan members used as a wright of passage, a jutsu only known to his kin, but he wasn't going to not take advantage of this opportunity.

"Tsugaro tells me of your obscure interests in chakra."

Harry raises a brow at the man. "Obscure?"

"Dimensional travel isn't really something shinobi focus on. If you don't mind me asking, what brought on such interest."

Dammit, Harry thinks. What am I supposed to say now?  
"Um....a lot of things really." 

"Is that so?" Fubatsu says, the tone of his voice showing just how much more of this conversation he wanted to hear.

"Yes." Harry says, swallowing. "What interests me mostly is mirror universes."  
Fubatsu tilts his head.

"Well," Harry continues. "every decision we make has its consequences. Imagine a situation where instead of saying yes, you say no. Now imagine the consequences of you saying no, how they would affect other people, and yourself."

"I don't understand." The man says slowly.

Harry sighs, dammit all. "My life before I became a jinchuriki wasn't exactly the nicest. The orphanage is a rough place to grow up in. All the children there, we know from the beggining that life has dealt us a not so good hand. And most of the children there take out their anger at the world and their circumstances on the weaker. They did it to me, the same was done to them when they were my age and the kids my age will probably do it to those that will follow.  
I want to see how my life would've turned out had I grown up with a family, or if I'd stayed at the orphanage or if I'd fought the villagers with equal parts cruelty. I want to see what could've happened to me if certain things hadn't happened.

I also want an advantage over my enemies. Just imagine me finding a dimension and mapping out its geography, then bringing an enemy there to fight. I'd have laid out traps and other nasty surprises for them and I would use what's around me to my advantage. "

 

"That seems like too much of hassle, but if you believe you can do it, then do it. That does not, however, mean you should slack off on your training. There are some shinobi out there you can't get the advantage of."

Harry takes the man's word to heart. He's much more older than Harry after all, but only on this world.  
"I want you to meet someone." The man says out of the blue.

"Who?"

"You'll find out soon." Fubatsu says, walking away from the empty field. "Come along."

Harry does just that.


	4. Chapter 5

"So......," Harry says, rocking back and forth at the balls of his feet. "Why are we watching the old geezer?"

"Never disturb a shinobi when they're meditating or practising katakana unless you have a very important reason. You are most likely to die early otherwise."

"That old geezer's still an on duty shinobi?" Harry asks, surprised.

"No," Fubatsu says, giving him a look that makes Harry know just what he thinks of his intelligence. "He's an old geezer as you put it, shinobi retire at some point Fū. And this one, retired a little over twenty years ago."

Harry looks more closely at the man. At a distance, you would think he's doing his kata perfectly, but now Harry can see just how unsteady everything about the man is. There's a tremor of exhaustion running through the length of his body, visible even through the thick fabric of his clothes. It has nothing to do with the length of time he's been at it, but more with his age. You could push him and he'd fall.

"I still don't know why we're watching him."

"That man over there is Tsugaro's great grandfather. They're —"

"Super close," Harry cuts him off. "I know."

"My father passed away a few years after I was born. That old man raised my brothers and I and he lead this Clan. He taught our kin values, values his Clan hadn't taught each other."

"He's from another Clan?"

"Yes, he is. He lead a revolution against his Clan members, because they did something treacherous. But he lost, and he had to take those who supported him and find them a home."

Hesitantly, because Harry has tact too even though he doesn't act like it, he asks "What was the name of his previous Clan?"

"Uchiha." The man says, darkly. "They are the Uchiha Clan."

"Isn't that one of Konoha's elite shinobi Clans?"

"It is." Fubatsu says, walking towards the old man when he stops his kata.

 

Apparently (according to Tsugaro) the old geezer's the oldest person alive in Taki, something virtually impossible when you're a shinobi. Being one is an occupational hazard, it literally reduces life expectancy to zero, so senior citizens are not a norm.

"Fubatsu." The old man pants out, tired from his exercise. "I didn't expect you to come for another two hours."

"Grandfather." Fubatsu greets. There's a certain fondness, tenderness or something in his voice (its soft, Harry can tell, but not in babying way) that isn't there when he speaks to anyone. "I've brought a guest over."

"That is most unusual. I thought you said this village is filled —" Fubatsu clears his throat, loudly. "I see."

Grabbing his cane from the ground, the old man gestures for them to follow.

"Seriously though, am I going to follow people around the whole day?"

Fubatsu looks down at him. "I think you're very much going to appreciate what he's going to tell you."

"You're leaving?"

"I have duties to attend to." He says with a sniff.  
'So that's where Tsugaro gets it.' He thinks, a smile curling onto his lips.

 

 

 

 

"I suppose I should start with who I am." The old man says, unsteadily pouring Harry a cup of green tea. "My name is Kazami Uchiha, a former member of the Uchiha Clan. I've been a Taki shinobi since the village was established no more than sixty years ago. I left my Clan because it was going through a dark...very dark time.  
I did not leave because I didn't believe the situation would get better, I did not leave because I lacked faith in them or because I didn't believe they would change." He takes a sip of his own tea, Harry following the lead. "I left because I was a coward."  
The ease with which he says this tells Harry that he's had a lot of time to think about the choice he made. He's accepted that maybe what he did was a mistake and he's learned to live with it. It's a rare thing to see someone so wholeheartedly accept something they did wrong and live with it, but Harry thinks that has more to do with age than anything else.

"If you don't mind me asking, what was the dark period your previous Clan went through?"

"Kinslaying." He says, his voice heavy. "Brother against brother, friend against friend, all for the chance at advancing our kekkie genkai."

"I don't understand..." Harry says, frowning.

"The Sharingan is a kekkie genkai, a dojutsu, that advances in stage whenever its wielder has experienced trauma." 

"So they deliberately traumatized themselves to grow their power?" Harry says, gaping a bit.

"The Uchiha's pursuit for power knows no limits, it is in our very blood to seek it. I was blind to this, until my own brother turned against me. Killing him was self-defense, I've forgiven myself for that. But l will never forgive myself for taking his eyes."

"Why did you?"

"I would've gone blind otherwise. Maybe if I hadn't let my father whisper treacherous things into my ear, if I had been strong enough to resist temptation, maybe, just maybe, I would've been able to help everyone turn around as I did. But I was a hypocrite to them and only a few saw my actions as generous and true. I lost faith in myself so I lef, but those who believed in me followed.  
To show their gratitude for me freeing them and finding them this home, they named themselves Kazami, after my name, and thus this Clan was born."

"I've never heard of the Kazami having a kekkie genkai."

"They don't. It died out." He takes another sip of his tea, reminding Harry of his own cup. "Kazami are made out mostly of degenerate Uchiha. The never developed the Sharingan, they were outcasts. That played a large role in getting them to listen to and to follow me. They were treated like animals, the runts of the pack. Those few Uchiha with the Sharingan that followed me decided not to have children, a decision I wholeheartedly supported. My children are another matter entirely. It was stipulated in Clan laws and traditions that a Clan Hea would have at least three children. Two of them, my eldest son and daughter died during the second and third Great Shinobi War. My youngest died some few years after naming my youngest grandson his heir. "

After a beat of silence, Harry asks. "Why are you telling me all of this?"

"My great grandson told me all about your interests in Space and Time ninjutsu, although he called it dimensional travel."

"Has Tsugaro told the whole lot of you about my interests?" Harry asks, annoyed.

"He was excited about having a friend. Wanted the whole family to know just how smart you are. But that's not what's important.

What's important is that you're a seven year old boy who hasn't even started his ninja career, and yet is fascinated with such an obscure study." He narrows his eyes at Harry. "Something just doesn't seem right about that. So, how about you tell me why you're interested in dimensional travel, and the tell me the truth please." The old man says, taking another sip.

The room is deadly quiet. Harry can hear the wind blowing outside, the chatter of people as they pass the house, he can hear his heart beating like that of a hummingbird. 

"I'm trying to get back home." Harry says so quietly, Kazami almost doesn't hear him. "I just want to see my family again."

The silence that follows is filled with unease, at least on Harry's side. A lot could happen right now. He's an imposter, no matter the situation or the lack of ill will towards the village on his side. Harry stole Fū's life and identity, he's —  
"The Mangekyou Sharingan is an advanced form of the Uchiha dojutsu." Its only years of masking his emotions that stops him from showing his confusion. The old guy is supposed to be screaming bloody murder or something. "It has many undocumented abilities, many of which I am unaware of, but Space and Time ninjutsu is amongst one of its capabilities. I have the Mangekyou Sharingan myself, but the chakra it would take to activate it and help you with your plight is beyond me. As you can see, I'm just skin and bones." The old geezer says, smiling a toothless smile at Harry. "But, I'm sure if you could journey to the Hidden Leaf and ask for the assistance of an Uchiha with this, not that that will be easy, Uchiha are secretive about their prized kekkie genkai and are very reluctant to help without gaining something very substantial in return, then maybe you could make it back home. Or you could learn fūinjutsu, a difficult art to specialize in. It could take you many years, a decade if you'd start now—"

"I think maybe I'll take my chances with the Uchiha."

"It won't be easy. Taki and Konoha aren't exactly friendly. You'll need a valid reason to go to their country and village."

Harry sips his now lukewarm tea. "Why aren't you asking me stuff? I thought you'd at least be curious about where I come from."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm dying to find out. But I'm no stranger to the pain of homesickness. You'll tell me when you feel like it. This is only the first visit of many after all."

The old man stands, walking to a large chest on the right side of the quant tea room. "I have something for you." He bends down into the chest after opening it, roumaging through its contents and making a sound of triumph when he finds what he's looking for. "I hear you have a most peculiar ability. Wind release and Fire release chakra natures. These would be perfect to incorporate into a fighting style."

"Eh......aren't fans used by konoichi?" He says, taking the hand sized black fans from the old man.

"Yes, that is the case. But they suit the purpose for the time being. I would've suggested you use a gambata, but you're too young, you'd never be able to fight with something that heavy." Running an aged hand on the length of the two fans, he gives Harry a stern. "These once belonged to my dear wife —"

"Woah woah woah!" Harry almost screams out, his arms raised. "You're not secretly tricking me into a bethrodal with Tsugaro are you? Because this is a family herlom..."

Kazami chuckles. "Nothing like that, I assure you. But now that you've mentioned it...." He trails off, a booming laughter spilling forth from his lips whe he sees the look of revulsion on the young boys face.

"Ew....no, Tsugaro's like a brother to me. Just no!"

"These fans will show anyone whose lucky enough to see them, that you're a friend of our Clan's. It will keep the vultures away."

"Erm....thank you?" He says/asks awkwardly.

"Now, run along. I'm due past my afternoon nap." The old man says, shooing Harry away whilst yawning behind his other hand.

 

 

 

 

Now, one would wonder why Harry isn't really much focused on his magic, because he rarely uses it.

The funny thing about this world is that it's swimming with a magic of some kind. Its in everything, even the very air he breaths in. Its ambient.

Now Harry would very much love to see just what he can do with his magic, but he doesn't have a wand and contrary to the popular belief, Harry Potter was nothing more (still is) than a lucky bastard (that part isn't true, his parents were very much married when they had him). He doesn't have super cool powers or large magical reserves like Dumbledore or Voldemort. He's just lucky. And fortunate to have had a mother who loved him enough to sacrifice her life for him.

Which brings us back to an important topic. Harry has been trying to find away to command his magic since he woke up in this world, but to no avail, well not then at least. He can do things now, minor things like vanish a mess, levitate a few things and repair broken things. He can also do a wandless Lumos..... It almost blinded him the first time he did it, but maybe that had more to do with the fact that he was siphoning magic from around himself, not within. 

He's learned that meditation makes everything better, literally. His magic responds better when he's calm—he's at the edge of something great, its just going to take a couple hundred more meditation sessions. The same applies for his chakra, it grows—at a very slow rate, but it grows nonetheless.  
Which is why he's meditating right now. Meditating real hard.

"Um, hello." A voice says, echoing around him and in his head.

Harry opens one eye and finds himself in a large swamp, a beautiful green forest surrounding the rest of what Harry can see (how the hell did he get here). When he opens his other eye—he screams like a little girl, because there's a big hulking something in front of him and gods he doesn't want to die before he gets home. 

 

 

So instead of acting like a seasoned aura or a budding shinobi, he just screams and panicks.


	5. Chapter 5

"Get away from me!"

"Wait!"

"Noooooo, don't eat me!"

"I won't —"

"Aaaaahhhhh! Leave me alone!"

"Listen!"

"You're gonna eat me! It's gonna eat me! Bad bug! Bad bad bug! Shoo!"

"Wa—"

"Heeeeeeeelp!!!!!!"

 

Harry knows he probably looks ridiculous— absolutely, embarrassingly, stupidly ridiculous. Honestly speaking though, who would listen to a fifty foot hulking beetle monster hybrid thing with six wings and tail trying to calm them down. Its only working to freak him out more.

 

"Stop!!!" The beast roars, knocking Harry of his feet. "I'm not going to eat you, foolish child!"

Said boy (man if we're talking facts) groans from his position in the grassy water.  
"Are you calm?" It asks, peering down it at him.

"Where the hell am I? Who the hell are you? What the hell are you?!"

"Are you calm? Good. You'reinside your mindscape." The beast says, sounding faintly amused. "I am Chōmei...or the Seven Tails as you humans like to refer to me."

Harry looks at the beetle thing. It doesn't seem all threatening now that he's calming down. Doesn't mean he'll let his gaurd down though, the beast might he trying to lull him into a false sense of security  
Harry's eyes squint suspiciously at the thing. "What am I doing here?"

"I thought a meeting between the both of us was due."

"And what? You thought we'd paint each others nails and gossip about boys?" He spits out in question.

"What does painting each other's nail have to do with our meeting?" The thing asks, honestly confused. Harry can't see its eyes or mouth, doesn't even really know where it's voice is coming from, which is a bit creepy.  
But he doesn't focus on that. Now that he's calm, the anger is starting to set in. Standing in front of him, after all, is the source of his misery.

"What do you want from me?" He grits out with a raised brow.

There's a stretch of uncomfortable silence."I can see that you don't like me much." It says slowly, as if Harry doesn't have a reason to hate it.

So he laughs. 

Its anything but a happy laugh. "I wonder why." He says, sarcastically.

"I see." Chōmei says, quietly.

"You see? You see!" Harry screams, feeling a cold fury burning within him. "Do you know how those people out there treat me? Do you fucking know?"

Chōmei watches him, silent.

"They look at me with hate and fear and contempt. They spit words at me, they stone me, they chase me away, they curl their lips at me in disgust, they shun me and its all your fucking fault! Its all your fault!"  
The silence is almost thick enough to slice through. Harry glares at the thing and he's a hundred percent sure its looking back down at him.

"I don't remember how I got to Taki."

Harry's brows furrow, the glare in his eyes turning confused. "So what?"

"I don't remember how I got to Taki, or the Land of Waterfalls."

"What are you saying dammit!?"

"I'm saying that someone wanted me here." Then it says "Someone probably wanted you to be a jinchuriki too."

And that there, is a can of worms Harry hadn't even bothered opening. 

Shit.

What the actual fuck is going on?

His nose flares, "How the hell is that even possible? You're a Tailed Beast."

"Doesn't mean I can't be controlled. There are shinobi out there with a strong enough will to suppress my own."

 

The way people and books describe them, its as if Tailed Beasts are indestructible pieces of shit that cause death and misery wherever they go. To think there's someone out there who can control them is a bit terrifying. What's scarier though is that that someone may have manipulated the situation so that Harry or maybe Fū could become a jinchuriki.  
But what would they want from Fū, better yet, why would they want Harry to be a jinchuriki? Is whoever bought the seven tails to Taki responsible for bringing Harry to this world.

 

"Alright. I see that maybe it could be in our best interest to work together." Harry says, anger very much present in his tone. "So, tell me everything you know."

 

 

 

 

Its years later, during a mission in Hi no Machi, with his team (Harry wouldn't call them that) that things go horribly wrong and Harry thinks for the first time since he'd pushed Chōmei's warnings to the back of his mind (their relationship is slightly strained, Harry can be quite stubborn and Chōmei is an annoying overgrown bug) that maybe he should've been more cautious and vigilant when he leaving the village walls, because they never see the 'thing' coming.

Harry doesn't sense it and neither does his sensei (total asswipe). 

The mission is simple and straightforward, the kind of mission thats given to a typical Taki genin team. Track and eliminate a group of bandits. Simple stuff (if you ignore the fact that his genin team is made up of a bunch of assholes).

They do just that, with Harry watching from the sidelines because he's eleven and they're fourteen and he's too young (apparently) and so he should watch and learn.

The team, sans Harry( That's wonderful isn't it. Harry is pretty sure thats going its appear on the mission report), take care of the bandits, seal the stolen valuables in a scroll and burn their camp along with their corpses ( which is just messed up) before they're on their way back to Hi no Taki.

Well at least that's what they think they're doing until the trees around them (because Hi no Machi is just as forested as Hi no Taki, Tani and Kuni) come alive and literally try to maim them.

Its much more terrifying than it sounds. Much much more terrifying.

Harry's actually a bit proud of how fast he reacts. The branches are thick, fast and he's pretty sure they can cut through flesh easily. But his tessen are enhanced with wind chakra, so he cuts through the branches like a hot knife through butter. He's nimble on his feet, channeling chakra into the soles of his shoes and propelling off the branches seconds after touching them. 

 

 

Its a dance, one that goes on even when he's on the ground. He's never heard of anyone having the infamous Wood Release other than the First Hokage of Konoha, what's happening around him both fills him with awe and terror. But he can't focus on that (he can't focus on a lot of things really). The branches maybe trying to maim himself, but they're hell bent on crushing his teammates (asswipes) alive.

Its takes a spilt second of his attention to send out a pulse chakra out to his surroundings (because Harry is never going to feel with his soul again, thank you) to try and locate the enemy, but all he gets back is a higher than normal concentration of 'nature chakra' (he learned this tidbit of infomation from Chōmei). That may be more because of the nature of the kekkie genkai being used against them, because Harry would've felt a sage if one was around.

The enemy can't have supressed their chakra, he thinks. Because chakra is like a footprint in the sand. It fades away with time, but its always lighting up like a beacon during an active technique.

"Where the fuck is he?" He says looking around while still keeping a close eye on his team. 

 

What they really need to do now is get out of the forest or they're done for.  
"Sensei!"

"What?" Nazumi questions, annoyed.

"We need to get out of here."

"Easier said than done!" Hikari says, snarling at the branches as they try to wind around him.

"We need a plan." Kinzu says, cutting a branch with her katana. 

"Do any one of you know a C-ranked Fire style jutsu?" Harry asks, cutting through a vine (thats new).

"I know a few." His sensei says.

"Alright. We're gonna burn our way out!"

"I like the sound of that!" Kinzu says, a grin stretching over her thin lips. "I'll cover you."

"I think we should head back the way we came. There's an opening I saw a few miles before the bandits camp." Harry says.

Nazumi gives him a suspicious glance, but this battle had no place for prejudices. They need to survive. "Alright, stand back. First style: Great Dragonflame jutsu!"

"Wind style: Great Wind Breakthrough!" The wind comes easily, responding to his command like a sailor-man to a sirens call. It follows closely behind the monster of fire that leaves Nazumi's mouth, moulding into it and igniting the flame to another level of heat and leaving nothing but a cleat path of ash in its wake.

Kinzu makes a whooping sound of delight, tearing into the clear path with a spray of water leaving her mouth when she reaches fire in her way, the team following closely behind.

Harry sees it at the corner of his eye, sinking into the bark of a tree as it leaps forward, following Harry and his team.

He doesn't show that he's seen it, whatever the hell it is, just follows his team, his fans clenched tightly in his hands, wind chakra running through them.

Three fire and wind style jutsu's later they reach the clearing, a wide expanse of tall green grass. Harry still doesn't feel safe, at all.  
"I saw something."

"The enemy?" Nazumi questions, casting him a glance.

"I couldn't make out any identifiable features, but the enemy could phase through trees as if there was nothing there. He looked...big and green."

"Sounds like a bedtime story monster." Kinzu snarks.

"Maybe it was." Harry snarks back

"This isn't the time, Fū." Nazumi snarls

'Seriously' Harry thinks, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. That will definitely make it to the mission report. "I'm telling the truth." Harry says, miffed and a bit frustrated.

"We should've left you back at home. Seems like you're —" Kinzu makes a choked sound, her malicious smirk turning into a grimace of pain. 

"Oh gods, Kinzu!"

Maybe Harry's equally an asshole for doing this (and for not crying out like Hikari) but he takes advantage of the situation. He's never done it before, isn't like Tom Riddle who could do it easily without a wand (and has undoubtedly left a lot of animals brain dead after practising on them) but he's good at dividing his attention, good at multitasking. All he needs is eye contact—he doesn't chant, he's far too acquainted with his magic to need words, needs only his will —and he's tearing into that thing's mind. 

 

The amounts of genjutsu blocks and traps that are layed out in plant man's mind are staggering. Harry isn't as discreet as Dumbledore, doesn't know how to move around without making a mess of things, and maybe that's a bonus because he tears through the things mind (he's surprised at the ease he crushes the blocks and traps)  
'Just observe, just observe it.'  
'How strong is the protection detail?'  
'Mother, soon mother soon. You will wait no longer mother. Mother mother mother!'

 

There are other thoughts— snippets of memories, thought out plans that float around, but those few sentences stand out.

 

That and how old the thing is.

 

Fuck.

 

They cannot beat this thing. Harry can survive this, but only because the thing wants him alive. His team is dead, unless they get as far away as possible from it.

To buy them time, he scrambles things around, ripping whatever looks like it's important (or will hurt) and leaves the thing's mind.

 

—There's a gaping hole on Kinzu's back. She's alive, breathing shallowly, but not for long—

 

He's left the plant thing a viscous headache and he can see it fighting to concentrate on Nazumi's attack, because she's coming at it with everything she's got (which honestly is not much). 

 

 

The last thing he wants to do is show his team what he can do—it will give them more reason to dislike him— but they're going to die if he doesn't do something. So he channels wind chakra to the soles of his shoes (not a very smart thing) and tessen, sends a gust of chakra enhanced wind at the thing whilst simultaneously leaping towards his sensei—who is midair. He almost misses her—because he's incredibly fast when he enhances his movements with wind chakra( Kutsuki says it dangerous, but when has Harry ever listened to that old bat) but manages to grab the hem of her flap jacket by the inch. He feels the farmaliar hook like pull at his naval, the dizzying and twisting lurch of an apparition and the sharp crack at his ear. Then—a moment later he appears next to Hikari and Kinzu, ignores the boy's widening eyes and grabs ahold of him (he has a tight grip on Kinzu's slack hand, hopefully he won't let go)

 

 

 

 

 

They land on their backs, Hikari loosing his stomach contents a moment later and Nazumi groaning in displeasure.  
Harry somehow having caught Kinzu—because he's super awesome at apparating— brushes aside all pains and aches, they're still a days travel from Taki. Kinzu will be dead by then if she doesn't get medical attention.

"Sensei, do you know any medic nin-jutsu?" 

Nazumi, looking a bit green, frowns in concern. "Only remedial stuff, the hemostasis jutsu."

"Dammit," Harry says, ignoring her suspicious stare and pulling a scroll out from his weapons pouch. (He had hoped he wouldn't play his cards out so early, but maybe this could play out in his favor.)

"You're reading a book...?" Nazumi asks, more confused than angry.

"Not just any book. A medical journal I was given to by the Head medic back at home. Its got lots of first aid information, I'm sure there's something about spinal damage."

 

"Alright. Hikari," she says, looking at the ravenhead teen. "I'll need you to go back to village and report what just happened."

"What if the things comes back?" Harry feels like this guy wants to ask what he's supposed to do if he meets it on his way back to Taki (it makes him a bit happy seeing the stuck up dick scared).

"I think between the both of us we can hold it off until reinforcements come."

"Alright," he says, very hesitant. "I'll return with them as fast as I can."

Harry spares him a glance as he goes, but mostly focuses on the book in his hands. "I need you to start the jutsu. I'm going to administrate a mild numbing poison around the wound, I need her awake for this. She has to tell me a few things so I can know the nature of the damage done."

"Poison?"

"I only have sedatives with me, but no numbing agents other than poisons. Please slowly try to rouse her, I need to collect a few herbs to mix together an antiseptic. We can't risk an infection, the entry point is at some pretty important parts."

 

He doesn't wait for her to saying anything before he's on the move. His nerves are on fire, senses highly alert. The air is dense with his chakra, waiting for any disturbances, even those with nature chakra—he's not making the same mistake twice. 

 

He isn't going to find what he's looking for here, Harry had apparated to the first place that appeared in his mind. With a wave of a hand—its more than that really because conjuring something out of nothing takes a lot of magic, especially when you do it wandless —and a little row of plants appear before him.

 

 

He has Calendula flowers which are anti-inflammatory, astringent, anti-microbial, anti-fungal, Sage which is anti-microbial, astringent, anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, anti-viral, Yarrow which is also anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-viral, astringent and finally has Thyme and Lavender which are both anti-septic and astringent.

Mixing them together is probably a bad idea (conjuring plants is always a bad idea) but Harry doesn't know what he's doing and he's hoping for the best. This is general knowledge, something they'd learned during the academy days (Harry had never thought he'd be using it to save lives). He just wishes they had gone beyond telling them which plants for what purpose. He doesn't know if what works when its cooked, dried or mixed.

 

Kinzu is awake when he comes back, eyes clouded with pain.

"We need to brace her neck, immobilize the rest of body to make sure she doesn't move from her side."

"I've got bandages, and I can make a splint." Nazumi says, momentarily halting the hemostasis jutsu. 

 

"Hey, asshole." Harry says, patting Kinzu's cheek to get her attention. "Tell me if there's anything you don't feel besides your back."

 

"I can't..feel, my legs," she gasps out.

 

"That's...not so bad." He lies, "we'll fix you right up. I promise."

 

"So, what type of damage are we looking at?" Nazumi says lowly, trying not to disturb the quiet that had fallen over when Harry had administered the sedative to Kinzu.

 

"I don't know, nerve damage maybe. Some spinal disks are out of place. Its bad.....if we don't do something she might not make it."

 

"I thought you said that was a book on first aid."

 

"Yeah, but all it says is I should wait for a trained medic. Between the both of us, we don't have enough chakra to keep the hemostasis jutsu going for more than a night."

"So what!? We just let her die?"

 

"I didn't say that. We need help, and the closest town only has civilian medics. We need to find, someone with extensive medical knowledge."

 

"Looks like its your lucky day then," a voice slurs out from the bushes.

 

Harry tenses, berating himself for completely forgetting about sending out more chakra for surveillance in the face of Kiznu's injury.

 

"Who goes there?" Nazumi growls, reaching into her pouch for a kunai.

 

"My Lady—"

 

"Is that... a way" the voice continues to slur, getting closer to them, "to someone who just offered to help you."

 

"Oh my gods," Nazumi says, her jaw going a bit slack when the two women step out of the forest. "Tsunade of the Legendary Sannin."


	6. Chapter 6

Tsunade Senju is afraid of blood. 

 

She's haemophobic. 

 

Isn't that just great? The best medic in the world is right here, in front of them but she has a bad case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that's closely linked to blood. Oh and let's not forget that she's shit faced drunk.

 

"Is she going to be alright?" Nazumi asks as Senju continues to loose her lunch.

"Don't worry about her. She's very tough." The girl, probably Senju's apprentice, says longsufferingly.

"Are you proficienct in medic ninjutsu?" Harry asks.  
"To some extent, yes I am."

"Then your help would greatly be appreciated."

"Lady Tsunade will help as well," the girl says, looking back at Senju, "if she decides to sober up. My name's Shizune Katō by the way."

"Fū of Takigakure at your service." 

"I'm Nazumi Akurai. That there," she points at Kinzu, "is my student Kinzu Watanabe. She was injured in battle just a while ago."

"How long?"

"No less then an hour. We sent for reinforcements, but they'll probably make it here in two days." Harry says, "I was just about to apply this herb mixture to prevent an infection, inflammatory and slow the bleeding."

"The herb mixture, what are the ingredients?" Shizune asks, 

"Thyme, lavender, sage, yarrow and calendula flowers. I made a paste."

"Its a good thing we got here then. Thyme and calendula flowers aren't supposed to go together unless they're boiled, dried, burned to ash and then mixed with distilled water. Otherwise, they're useless."

"I'll have to start the process over again." Harry says, a bit dejected. "I'll be back in just a moment."

"Dont worry, I always carry an antiseptic with me."

"Thats a relief." Harry says, sitting back down. "Finding all those herbs was no joke."

"What type of damage are we looking at?" Shizune asks. 

"I think a diagnosis jutsu will tell you far more than I can."

"Alright," she says, her hands glowing light green. "This...there's something wrong."

"What is it?"

"Her vitals are failing, rapidly."

"That's impossible. She's been stable the whole time. Her injuries weren't jarred that much, I made sure of it."

"She's not responding to my chakra. Its almost as if something.." She frowns, "something's draining her chakra."

Harry lets his hands hover above Kinzu, expanding a bubble of chakra around her body. A second later, his eyes widen. "Get away from her." He shouts out in warning, leaping away from his injured teammate.  
Nazumi, unfortunately, isn't fast enough. A white hand reaches out from Kinzu's neck, morphing into a white branch and rams through her chest. She's dead in an instant.

 

Shizune's scream is enough to get Tsunade's attention. Harry feels her chakra do something and then a moment later she's sober and standing guard, in front of them.

The thing on Kinzu's neck bubbles (its real nasty to watch) until it morphs into the white half of plant man (a clone maybe).

It grins at them, with sharp white gleaming teeth. It has green hair and amber eyes just like Harry, but the similarities end there. Yes, its humanoid, but it has no reproductive parts (that are visible cause its butt naked) and is completely white. Not even ashen, just white.

"What the hell do you want from me?" Harry asks, because there's no use in denying that this thing is after him. 

 

The clone plant man thing just laughs before running at them with the intent to kill, spikes protruding from all over its body. Harry, using his small stature to his advantage, slides under the space between Tsunade's open legs, already on the last hand sign for the strongest fire style jutsu he knows.  
"Fire Style: Fireball jutsu!" 

He misses...by a large margin.

"What are you doing?" Tsunade asks, looking around them for the absent enemy.

"I think it lays chakra absorbing clone parasite thingies on you when it touches you. We need to burn that thing or something, but without getting near it." He says, preparing a pulse of chakra. The ground beneath him shudders.

"Look out!" He shouts leaping away. Tsunade and Shizune, luckily, are as sharp as they come. They leap away with him, showing obvious experience with their speed.

Tsunade growls low in her throat from where she's crouched, before launching at the thing, chakra firmly coating her fists.

She fast for someone with boobs that big, Harry thinks, watching as the Sannin takes the white plant man out with a single punch to the head. There's a disgusting crunch of bone and the thing drops down the ground, green puss oozing from a fist sized dent in its head.

 

"That was too easy." she says, running blue chakra along the length if her body in search of any parasites.

"No, it's dead." Harry says, feeling no chakra from the clone thing.

"Good." Tsunade says. "Shizune, we're off to the next bar, I'm craving sake."

"My Lady —" Shizune starts to complain, but Harry cuts her off.

"Wait, please. No one will believe me if I tell them that thing killed my teammates."

"What are you, some criminal?" She asks, brow raised.

"No, but I might as well be what with the way they treat me back at home."

"Listen kid, I'm a very busy person. I don't have time to follow every brat that needs my help around the elemental nations. You've got evidence in front of you," she says pointing at the dead clone, "you can drag it back to your village with you."

"I can't carry three bodies and protect myself at the same time, that's impossible." Harry says with a harrumph.

"Maybe we should help her my Lady." Shizune says. 

Tsunade gives her a long stare, her annoyed gaze slowly softening.

 

"Alright. But you're using all your mission pay to buy me sake."

 

 

 

 

"Get out of my shop you demon brat!" The man, Kitsuzuki-san says, spittle fly out of his mouth.  
Naruto doesn't just watch him, he see's. 

 

There's more pain than anger in the man's eyes.

 

Those very same eyes, (mirthless, lifeless, dull) they do not see Naruto, but through him. They see something else, something dark and evil, something that has caused this man pain. He isn't the only one who looks through Naruto, many people in the village do, sadly even old man Hokage. Naruto knows what they see. He may be dumb and dense (very dense according to Shika) but even an idiot would make the connection after hearing about Nine Tailed Fox and being called a demon fox brat. He doesn't know if he's the Nine Tail's child or if he's related to the demon, but Naruto knows that he's never done all those things they've accused him of (some of them maybe, Naruto Uzumaki is prankster through and through after all) and that children aren't supposed to be treated the way they treat him either.

 

But he's stopped crying about someone being rude, someone overpricing goods for him or someone selling him rotten food. He's learned that it won't help him.  
So instead of screwing up his face and wailing like a cry baby, Naruto snarls at him. "Whatever. Ramen's better than anything you sell in this stupid shop anyway!" And promptly walks off, his gaze averted from the crowds so that he doesn't see their glares of hatred.

 

Absentmindedly he walks up to the banks of Nakano river, his third favorite spot in the village after the Fourth's head and old man Ichiraku's place, and happens to find the bastard. 

 

Sasuke Uchiha. 

 

His number one nemesis. No, vegetables are his number one nemisis, he think with a disgusted shudder. Sasuke is his second nemisis.

Maybe its because he isn't feeling so good himself or because old man Hokage asked him to be nicer to the bastard because his whole Clan was butchered and all, but for some reason Naruto doesn't walk away after saying something incredibly rude like he's prone to do.  
No, for some insane reason he sits down next duckbutt head and keeps his big mouth (he's very much aware of how much he talks) shut.

"I'm not in the mood." The bastard says, not even looking up from his reflection in the water.

"In case you haven't noticed bas—" he stops, a look of disgust and revulsion bleeding onto his expression when he says the bastards name, "Sasuke, I didn't start anything."

"Che, whatever."

There's something in the bastards voice that Naruto has heard before in people when they're screaming bloody murder at him. 

Hatred.

Its not directed at Naruto though, he knows that for sure. The bastard probably hates the asshole that murdered his whole Clan.

"I heard about your family." Naruto says.

Sasuke glares at him, promptly standing up. "I don't need or want your pity."

"As if I'd ever pity you, bastard." Naruto spits. "I'm sorry they're dead, but that's it."

Naruto swallows painfully, forcing the next words up his throat. Dammit, he hates this damn bastard. "You're strong. Maybe not as much as Iruka-sensei or old man Hokage, but you're strong, so you'll overcome the pain you're feeling right now."

And somehow, with those few words, Uzumaki Naruto drastically changes the course of the future. Because a tentative tolerance of each others presence grows between the two, much earlier than the Fates would've had it. 

 

 

 

Harry almost trips over a stone running.

He doesn't apologize when he bumps into someone( its better not to), but just runs as if his life depends on it. Chakra coats his feet without much thought as he gets on water, still running with a single minded purpose.

Reaching Tsugaro.

He barely feels the change of chakra flow on the soles of his shoes when he starts climbing Takigakure's largest tree, running up and up and up until he reaches the very top branch, the one where he shared everything with his best friend (he hasn't forgotten Ron and Hermione, but they aren't here).

Luckily, he's there and Harry feels something twist painfully in his chest when he sees the strongest person he knows (in this world at least) looking so broken.  
"He's dead." 

Harry quickly wraps his skinny and short arms around the fifteen year old to his best ability, tucking his head between his shoulder and neck as sobs wrack his body.  
The nights air is cold and plenty up there, Taki below them with nothing but dots of light showing that it's there. Harry can feel cold seep into his body, he's not wearing the warmest of clothes.

"Tsugaro, I don't know what to say." Harry manages to choke out, battling with his own grief.

"They say he slipped away whilst he was asleep. But," he pauses, sniffing, "it doesn't make sense. My great grandfather was healthy, even the medics said it was a miracle."

"These things happen Ts—" 

"No, they don't." He almost wails out. "The Uchiha Clan were massacred a week ago. It's too much of a coincidence."

"What?" Harry asks, pulling back. "What do you mean they were massacred?"

"They were all butchered by the Clan heir, Uchiha Itachi."

"Isn't he thirteen years old?" He asks in disbelief, looking around wildly. 

"Hari—"

"No!" He says, anguished. "Do you know what that means Tsugaro!? My children! I can't get to my children!" 

"Their are and will be other ways." He says, wiping his tears.

"I'm not smart," Harry says, sounding at the end of his rope. "I'm not resourceful either, no matter my status as Shibuki's ward. I'll never see them again, will I?"  
"You have me." Tsugaro says, gathering Harry in his arms. "I'll help you as best as I can."  
Harry looks into his friends dark and sincere eyes(he's really close up, they're practically breathing in the same air). Tsugaro's eyes are red rimmed and puffy and most of all, there is grief clearly shinning in them.  
"Thanks Tsugaro." Shamefully, he says "You're always looking out for me, even when things aren't going well for you.

For what it's worth, Kazami lived a long life and he...he died knowing that his family loved him."

"Thanks Hari." He says, " and I'll always look out for you. I care about you."

Something in the way he looks at Harry when he says this tells him it means more than he's letting on, but the young jinchuriki desides to file it away for later observation. Right now, he has to make sure Tsugaro is alright.

 

 

There's something like defeat settling heavily in Harry's chest. Well, that and a simmerimg anger building up in gut. If the time in his former world is moving in correspondence to this one, then Albus is probably done with his Hogwarts education, James as well. Lilly Luna, his little Lilly is in her third year, growing into a beautiful young Lady.

He hates whoever brought him here and gods when he finds that person, he's going to tear them apart.

He doesn't stay with Tsugaro long, but promises him he'll come by his house after he deals with his dead teammates. They (him, Tsunade and Shizune,) had found Hikari's corpse on the outskirts of the border of Hi no Taki. 

Things did not look good.

But alas, he hadn't needed to worry because no one was going to question the word of a cranky woman who could punch a hole through a wall without much effort or thought. He got off with a punishment though, Tsunade and Shizune didn't know it was, but Harry knew that they knew how much he hated being confined to the village that hates him. 

He was to stay without a team until further notice and since he wasn't a chunin, he couldn't go on solo missions. So the only missions he'd be allowed to do were D-rank.

All in all he'd had a bad day, and to make it worse Tsunade had actually not been joking about the sake.  
"Taki is second after the Land of Rice-paddies when it comes to making some good ass sake." She'd said, seriously.

 

Damn drunk.

 

Now he had to deal with the possibility that Tsugaro had more than just platonic feelings for him, which was confusing. 

Harry was well in his forties mentally and physically just barely eleven years old. It was wrong, but also not so wrong, just really confusing.

 

Harry wasn't the boy( man) who lived or the chosen one here, he was literally a number one undesirable. So to think that someone cared about him...gods, he sounded so needy, but it was hard. Harry had gotten used to being loved by his children (and even Ginivra before she'd started whoring) and friends. But here, it was so little and he craved it like a drug.

'You're projecting your thoughts.'

'Sorry' 

'Mind if I distract you?' Chōmei asks.

'Go ahead.' Harry says, grateful.

'I've been thinking,' the seven tails says, sounding pensive, 'trying to connect the dots, trying to make sense of current events and let's just say that my conclusion is concerning.'

'Enlighten me.' Harry says, all thoughts about love leaving the forefront of his thoughts.

'Seven years ago, the my eldest of my sibling, Nine Tails, attacked the Hidden Leaf village. Last I heard, he'd been sealed inside an Uzumaki princess, making him the first tailed beast to have a jailor.

Uzumaki, from what I've heard, were very proficient in the art of seals.'

 

It's wierd (always is) what happens next. Harry turns around and he's inside his head, in that forest where he first found the Lucky Seven Chōmei. He's still aware of what's happening around him, but he's also looking up at the tailed beast sealed inside him.

"So?"

'So,' Chōmei repeats, 'it doesn't explain how he could've escaped.'

"I may not be the best in fūinjutsu, but I know that's very possible." He says this, brow raised.

'If it were any other tailed beast that would be the case, but you've never seen what Uzumaki could do with their seals. My brother would've never been able to get out without someone's help.'

"Are we talking about the same figure that engineered your appearance in Taki?"

'Maybe, maybe not. But there's a connection with the recent Uchiha massacre.'

"How did you come up with that?"

'As you probably remember from your history class back at the academy, Uchiha Madara fought Senju Hashirama using the Nine Tails. He could command my brother to do his bidding with just a glance of his Sharingan.   
Following those events are mine and the Nine Tails rampage, then the Uchiha massacre. Whoever made me attack this village, whoever helped my brother escape his jinchuriki and whoever massacred the Uchiha Clan... They're all connected.'

"Uchiha Itachi was only five years old when the Nine Tails rampage happened. He couldn't have been involved with that or with you appearing in our village a year earlier."

'Yes, but he was involved with his Clan being massacred. You told me it wasn't possible for a thirteen year old to do that, so what if he was being helped by our mysterious figure?'

"Why would they help Itachi? That doesn't make any sense."

'Look at it this way. This mysterious figure can control Tailed beasts just like Madara himself could. Now imagine a scenario where you can control Tailed Beasts, but there's whole lot of other people who can do the same. Wouldn't you want to get rid of the competition? Wouldn't you want it so that no one else can foil whatever plans you have in store for the tailed beasts?'

Harry shakes his head in denail. "That's too farfetched. Yes, there's some logic there, but it seems too farfetched.

Maybe the Uchiha were responsible for the Nine Tails rampage and have just been recently discovered. Two people survived. Itachi, the executioner and his younger brother Sasuke. Maybe Itachi was the one to reveal his Clans transgressions to his higher ups, and maybe his reward was keeping his brother alive."

'Why would he take the blame?' Chōmei asks with a frustrated huff.

"Maybe because he didn't want shame to befall his family name. The Uchiha Clan was massacred by it's heir. That's all we've heard. What if they were taken out by Konoha's special force, the AnBu?

Look, we've been saying maybe this and that ever since we started. How about we stop, because you're...we're complicating things and probably blowing them way out of proportion."

'Fine.' Chōmei sighs. 'But I still think we should consider this a possibility.'


	7. Chapter 8

After almost five years...finally, he's leaving the suffocating walls of Taki. They've intimately (all the nasty civilians and shinobi that is) felt his ire and maybe that's why they've finally allowed Shibuki to let him go on a mission.

Harry impatiently waits for his ‘teammates’ at the northern eastern moat of the village. 

It’s been fifteen minutes since he was told by Shibuki that he’d be entering the exam with two other genin of the village, hopefully, Harry thinks, they’ve already been briefed on their mission.

 

“They’re probably not even genin” he mutters, because it’s true to some extent. Shibuki wouldn’t agree to let him walk out the village unless he was being accompanied by shinobi strong enough to protect him. He looks back in the direction he came in. The water surrounding Taki isn’t exactly a moat, but it serves the same purposes one does when it’s surrounding a castle. With a majority of the legion of shinobi found in the Hidden Waterfall having a water based chakra affinity, it’s virtually impossible to infiltrate Taki, something those fat elders can’t seem to stop talking about.

 

It’s a beautiful village though.

 

Vile people aside, it’s a truly magical place. Harry remembers how he hadn’t been able to look down for three days straight after being released from the hospital the first time he woke in the village. He’s never seen a tree that large before, never seen a tree that could grow to that proportion. The greatest view of the village is during the night, when the lights in the village reflect upon the water, shooting a kaleidoscope of colours up to the leaves on the tree above. Ever since he could channel chakra to the soles of his feet to help him walk up trees and walls, he’s found that sitting up there helped calm him down when he’s feeling murderous. 

 

He quickly straightens up when he feels the three signatures approaching. His team is strong, clan members probably, judging by their dense chakra. 

 

Honestly, if it was any other country they’d be accused of sending chunin or jonin to participate in a chunin exam for genin, but Takigakure is notorious for producing strong shinobi, almost on par with Uzushiogakure on that front. 

Konoha will be skeptical, but they won’t question them. When the three land in front of him, he almost does a double take. Shibuki probably would’ve eventually agreed to let him go to the chunin exams because it obviously took a lot to convince both the Clans involved and those council elders and members who hated him to task two clan prodigies and a clan heir with protecting him. 

 

Jinketsu Kazami, taijutsu prodigy of the Kazami Clan. Harry doesn't particularly like him, but he's an alright guy. He just hates that Tsugaro lost his Clan's favor when he started going out with Harry. But that was more to do with Harry being Clanless and male than him being a jinchuriki. Proud as they are without a kekkie genkai, the Kazami are still all about diversity in blood. They don't think its a good idea for a clan heir to have interest in males especially if they aren't going to benefit the Clam in anyway. 

He’s around sixteen years of age, taller than Harry with a solid two heads, black hair, amethyst eyes and a face to die for. He’s a subject of many fantasies and thus a very sought after partner. Jinketsu may be a chunin, but he is by far undefeated when it comes to taijutsu, he is the pride of his clan. 

 

The next is Himari Akarui, clan heiress of the Akarui clan and a chunin of Taki. With bright purple hair coupled with a pretty face and a slim figure, Himari could be one of the prettiest girls in the village. It doesn’t help that she’s completely nice, even to Harry, and just as prodigious with her Clan Kekkie Genkei. The Akarui clan is the opposite of the Hidden Leaf’s Nara clan, specializing in using light release, which is an advanced nature release created by combining the Fire release and the Lightening release natures. Techniques of the Light release show themselves as immense blasts of concentrated heat or as reflexive attacks that bend the light around them. Harry’s avoided their clan more than any other, they aren’t overly fond of his constant use of ‘lumos’ when blinding bigoted fools. Himari is the exception though, everyone likes her. 

The last is Ichigo Tsuyujimo, the only one who looks vaguely normal. With brown shoulder length hair, dull brown eyes and a round the mill face, he could be overlooked as a threat. That is usually the enemy’s first mistake. He is dangerous...very dangerous. 

 

It’s why he’s one of the thirty one tokubetsu jonin in Taki.

 

Ichigo is a member of the Tsuyujimo Clan, decedents of the Yuuki Clan, who possessed the ice release, which was eradicated in Kirigakure during the Bloody Civil War against all Kekkei Genkei possessing shinobi and civilians. Harry doesn't know how they made it out of Kiri alive, it isn't general knowledge. 

His speed is devastating. Now couple that with his iron grip control on his Kekkei Genkei and you get a shinobi who can turn you into a thousand ice cubes in a matter of seconds, deep in the deserts of Suna.

 

An A-ranked shinobi of Taki. 

 

“Himari-san, Tsuyujimo-san, Kazami-san.” He greets with a faint bow of his head. He’s never met the two males personally, so he hopes things will run smoothly.  
“Hello Fuu-kun.” Himari says, while others nod.

“I think the mission is simple. We protect you from enemy shinobi in case they try to capture you, and help you complete the Konoha chunin exams, correct.” Ichigo says, monotonously.

“Yes.” Harry says, nodding. “Helping me with the chunin exams pertains working as team. Out of necessity, I am aware of most of your abilities and weaknesses, but are you aware of mine?”

“Only those we’ve so far observed.” says Jinketsu.

“Untraceable chakra, enhanced strength which results in devastating taijutsu blows, monstrous stamina.”

“I’ve observed you using your Scale Powder Technique on particularly rude civilians, as well as an attack similar to my Clan’s light release.” Himari says amusedly.

“I know you have a shallow but diverse intake on the art of sealing. A dual affinity for Fire Style and Wind Style ninjutsu, and you’re exceptionally good when it comes to healing.” says Ichigo. “If we haven’t listed all your abilities I’d like you to fill us in on the rest.”  
“Because of my Jinchuriki status, I have large chakra reserves and the ability to use nature chakra. That’s the only reason I can use the jutsu similar to the light release. Nature chakra does not have the same limitations that the chakra we’re born with does, it can alter the fabric of reality easily (bullshit, Harry thinks with a smirk). I can also use Yin release, one of the two nature transformations that exist outside of the elemental circle, and Yang release to some extent. Yin release is based on the spiritual energy that governs imagination and it is created by altering the ratio of spiritual and physical energy in favor of the former, in case you aren't of what it is." He says, when Himari makes a confused face. "But I haven’t really gotten a hang of it, and it’s really not important as of yet, but I can tell you this. When I do master it, my genjutsu will be even more devastating than it is now.”

Harry knows they’ve probably seen or heard of what they think are his genjustsu, no one has been able to find his house after all. Even the Kazami Clan’s best, the only ones in Taki immune to genjustsu, hasn’t been able to get through his repelling charms. Well, the only exception is Tsugaro, and that's only because Harry let him see it.

“Jinketsu, you’ll be in front, with your taijustu you’ll be able to hold off the enemy in case of a frontal attack. Fuu will be at the centre, providing primary support with either ninjustu or genjustu attacks. Himari and I will take the sides, providing secondary support as well as a diversion incase enemy is much stronger the team. 

 

Alright, if that’s all, then let’s move out.”

They spread out, a distance of five meters between them in all directions so that the enemy doesn’t take them out in one go. The Land of Dragons, found on the south western side of the Land of Fire has forestry almost as dense as the one surrounding the Hidden Leaf. Taki shinobi are as good as Konoha shinobi when it comes to navigating through trees, so Harry is pretty sure no one will be dumb enough to attack them in such a setting, but nonetheless, it’s good to be prepared. 

 

They have miles ahead of them, and Harry can’t wait.

 

They stop sixteen times, far too many times than normal, but it’s the best way for them to cover longer distances. They reach Tanzaku Gai in five days, a feat they achieved only because Ichigo pushed them hard. Konoha is only a days’ travel away and the chunin exams start in three days, so they’ll lay low in this small, vile town before completing the rest of the journey at a slower pace.

 

“Aaargggh,” Himari groans as she settles herself inside the large tub. “The only thing I like about this town is this place is the bathhouses, and that’s only because the water is at the right temperature.”

 

“I totally agree.” Harry adds quietly, enjoying how his aches slowly dim. 

 

“Hn.” Jinketsu adds hoarsely, a blush covering his face. 

This onesie doesn’t really have any gender specification, so there are both naked men and women inside. Ichigo seems to be the only one unaffected, even Harry blanched a bit when he came inside the onsen.

They all went quiet. They weren’t exactly friends and they didn’t really have anything much to talk about. That is, until Ichigo asked a question. “Why is your chakra untraceable?”

Harry opened his eyes, which had been closed. “That’s because I primarily use nature chakra. Unless a shinobi has used nature energy before, they’ll never be able to trace those that have, even with a dojutsu like the Sharingan or the Hyuga’s Byakugan.”

“I’m curious about something as well. How is it you came about to using nature energy?” Himari asks. "I thought only a sage could do that."

“Most if not all the Nanabi’s chakra is made of nature energy." Harry says, failing to hide the small smirk on his lips. Its a good thing no one has much interested on how jinchuriki work in Taki, otherwise they'd have figured out that most of the things he can do are because of magic, not tailed beast chakra. "I had to master how to use his chakra, which wouldn’t have been possible if he wasn’t so compliant, before I could even think about getting to that stage where I can absorb the endless supply available in the nature around me.”

“So you’ve interacted with your Bijuu before?” Jinketsu asks.

“I was encouraged to. Even though my success was being sabotaged by the people of Taki, Shibuki helped wherever he could. It’s not enough, never will be, but I’m grateful for all the time he invested into making me grow as a shinobi, I’m grateful for his words. He told me not to give up, on myself or the people of Taki and I haven’t. 

 

'I have many reservations when it comes to the tender loving care I’ve received in Taki though.' He thinks.

So far, neither one of his teammates has made any crass comments when it comes to his tenant. They haven’t shied away from him either when he told them he speaks to Chomei. 

He’s give them food for thought, now they’ll most likely share their views with their family and friends. Maybe he can change the stigma against his person on the shinobi side.

 

“As nice as it is to sit here and gossip like schoolgirls,” Ichigo says, monotonously as always. “you need to sleep. The exam is not going to be easy and you aren’t going to do your best when you’re tired.”


	8. Chapter 9

They leave before the sun rises behind the horizon. 

The Land of Fire is cool during the night and early morning, but becomes warm and moist during the day. It comes second with the amount times it rains when compared to the other villages, Amegakure being the first. They all feel the chill on the first twenty minutes of their sprint, but soon warm up from all the energy being burned from their bodies.

Throughout the day, they share snippets of conversations. 

 

Himari, feeling as though they have truly become comrades after seeing Ichigo’s pelvic region, does not let anyone have a moment to their thoughts. She shares embarrassing stories about her childhood, asking her temporary teammates to do the same. Then she tells them about her favorite foods, her hobbies, her friends, her dreams.

 

The team dutifully listens, even when she’s gushing about her crush, a boy whose name Harry’s already forgotten about. It’s very unorthodox, especially because of the sensitivity of the mission.

 

“Listen up!” Ichigo says, cutting Himari off from gushing on for another hour. “We’re coming up the check point. Navigating towards the Hidden Leaf will get much more difficult from here on, so either a chunin or jonin will accompany us the rest of the way. I’m sure I don’t have to emphasize just how important it is you don’t blurt out that two thirds of your team are not the rank they say they are.” 

 

The three of them nod seriously, all playfulness leaving their faces. Two of them are here to protect their country’s jinchuriki after all.

 

It’s not even two minutes later when they come upon the checkup point. There are other shinobi there as well, alot from Suna and Oto, the newly formed missing-nin village, a few from Kumo, some from Kusa. He spreads his chakra out, highly concentrated with nature energy; barely perceptible to the average shinobi, the moment he settles down, getting a feel of what the competition is like. 

 

It’s only because he’s looking that he sees it, a girl, a Kusa-nin judging by that headband, twitches when his chakra passes over her. He almost writes it of as a coincidence, but then she turns around and looks at him. His eyes narrow. The blatant arrogance is not without merit. Her chakra is different, too vast, far too settled to belong to someone who’s that young. Even though it’s coiled so tightly that its almost not there, Harry can feel it. She uses nature chakra, that bit is obvious; no one outside of a Sage can sense nature chakra. He sends another pulse of chakra at her and almost blanches. 

Her chakra hisses like a live snake. 

 

She turns around to look at him fully and an emotion, wariness, fury, curiosity fills her eyes. 

 

He notes to watch her carefully, she could be very dangerous.

 

“The name’s Aoba,” a normal looking shinobi with a pair of dark shades on and gravity defying raven hair, says. “I’m a jonin of the Hidden Leaf and I’ll be escorting you the rest of the way. Now, the Sandaime Hokage asks very little of you. Our village is neutral ground, so leave your skirmishes and grudges outside our gates, or we will kick you out. There will be no fighting, that is, unless you’re participating in the exam.” He casts them an icy glance, one they can all feel through his glasses. 

 

“Follow me.” He says, leaping onto the trees and slipping deeper into the thick foliage of the Fire Country. Ichigo gives the team a faint nod, before leaping into the trees after the Konoha jonin. The team follows closely behind. 

 

 

 

Sarutobi closes the scroll in his hand with a barely audible sigh, feeling ten years older than his age. He takes a long drag from his pipe, his right hand twitching very faintly in signal for his AnBu to leave him, then he grabs the crystal under his table. 

 

Before sending chakra into it, to activate it, he thinks about the missive he just received from the current Takigake.

 

The Nanabi Jinchuriki is set to reach Konoha’s gates in a few hours if this missive is correct. 

 

Three Jinchuriki in one village.

 

Three. 

 

“Hopefully,” he prays to the gods, “nothing bad will come of this.”

 

 

“What is it?” Jinketsu asks.

 

“Hmm.” Harry hums distractedly, his eyes moving over the bustling streets of Konoha. He hasn’t said a word since they arrived.

 

“Are you alright, Fuu?” Himari asks. “You’re brooding, and that’s his job.” She says, pointing a finger at the Kazami heir. 

 

Jinketsu huffs, before speeding up and walking beside Ichigo.

 

“So?” she questions after a few minutes. “What’s eating you up?”

 

“Do you see?” he says, gesturing the people bustling about.

 

“What exactly is it I’m looking for?”

“These people…..are so warm.”

 

She puts a hand on his shoulder, causing him to stop. “Fuu?”

 

“Not even a single look in our direction was filled with anything but curiosity. Do you know how great this feels?” he says, flushing a bit when they all look at him. “To be looked at like that, without hate or fear or wariness. I don’t even remember what it was like before……before I become what I am. ”

Himari averts her gaze in shame. 

“There are other Jinchuriki here too.”

 

That owns him a sharp glance from Ichigo, who has undoubtedly been listening in. “You can sense them?” he says, casting a discreet glance around them.

 

“No.” he disagrees, his eyes glazing over a bit in concentration. “I told you before, that Bijuu chakra is made of nature chakra, tainted, yes, but its nature chakra at the end of the day. When a Jinchuriki uses their Bijuu’s chakra, it lingers, far longer than normal chakra would. There are trace amounts all over the village, some old, some new.” 

 

“So they’re probably experienced in using their Tailed Beast chakra?” Himari says in conclusion 

“Or their seals syphon chakra from their Bijuu into their chakra coils.” Jinketsu adds.

“None of that matters anyway. I don’t think I should approach them.” Harry says dismissively. “Building a relationship with another Jinchuriki could complicate things. I mean, people are already wary of Jinchuriki, imagine if we started making friends with one another. They’d think the worst.”

 

“He’s right. Get all thoughts about them out of your mind; you came here to become a chunin. Not make friends.” Ichigo says, giving Harry a hard look.

“Hai.” He says softly. 

“I’m heading back to the inn.”

“I’ll join you” Jinketsu says.

“Fuu and I are going to explore a bit.” Himari says, grabbing ahold of the smaller boy’s arm and smiling sweetly at her temporary teammate and sensei. Ichigo gives them a long look, before turning around and leaving.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” Jinketsu says, before following Ichigo.

“Come on. Let’s go find them.”

“Did you not hear what sensei said or Jinketsu for that matter?” Harry says, letting himself get dragged.

“Please, if we listened to Jinketsu we would stand there for the rest of the day.”

“You’re right about that.” Harry says with a chuckle. “But I still think this is a bad idea.”

“Look, we aren’t disobeying sensei. We’ll find these Jinchuriki guys or girls and you’ll stand there and look interesting.” She says smartly. “Then you’ll do the Jinchuriki friendship dance.” 

Harry snorts, nudging her softly on the side as she giggles. “Sometimes I wonder how you were named one of the brightest konoichi of our generation.”

“I’m just that awesome.” She chirps. “Oh, look at that. A Dango stand. Come on, let’s go get some.”

“I’m not really hungry.”

“Dango is a snack, idiot.” 

 

 

 

It’s been a long time since Harry has to stand on his own two feet, without anyone flanking his sides and giving support during trying times. 

Even in Taki, he’s had Tsugaro (his Clan to some extent), Shibuki and Choumei on his side when everyone was against him and in his other life there was Hermione and Ron to help through the whole Hocrux debacle and all the other adventures they went through during their time at Hogwarts. 

He feels a tick growing in his left eyebrow as he looks down at the questions before him, because theory has never really been his strong suit. In his frustration, he misses the flaring chakra signatures all around him.

 

‘Question 1: Decipher this block of text type question, after it's been encoded.’

 

He looks at the text he has to decode and almost falls over in fright.

 

‘Question 2: Line B is the greatest possible distance a shinobi can throw his shuriken from a tree of 7 metres. For enemies who appear within the circumference of the shuriken's range, explain his attack options. Show working.’

‘What the hell is a shuriken circumference range???’ he asks himself, feeling panic bubbling up his throat. 

‘There’s supposed to be working? Kami-sama, help me!’  
‘Harry, is everything alright?’ Choumei asks, his voice softly crooning in the green haired boys ears.

‘I’m stuck; I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve never had to answer this back at our Academy!’ He thinks, 

‘It’s useless to dwell on such, just focus on what’s happening now.’ The tailed beast says sagely. ‘Are you sure you can’t answer this?’

‘I’m pretty sure I can’t answer this.’ He says dryly.

‘I might have a way to help you.’

‘I’m listening.’

He meditates for half an hour, making sure to thoroughly mix Choumei’s chakra with nature energy; he needs it for this particular technique and mixing it with nature chakra removes the toxicity so it doesn’t affect the people around him. 

 

It gets him a sharp glances from the proctors (and that Kusa genin twitches again), when his chakra goes nonexistent in a matter of minutes. 

Then, very thin strings of that chakra slip out of his open palm and meander around the room until they latch onto his unsuspecting teammates.

 

‘Hey guys’ he sends through the link he’s created.  
Of course, being shinobi, the only outward sign of their fright is their hands inching towards their kunai pouches. They meet each other’s gazes, quirk their eyebrows before looking in Harry’ direction.

 

‘Sorry if I frightened you, but I’m in a bit of a bind’

‘Why am I not surprised’ Jinketsu sends back, his tone very dry.

‘What do you need help with Fuu?’

‘I don’t know how to answer some of the questions that require field experience.’ His plight is met with a long uncomfortable silence from the other two. ‘Hello?’

‘Questions two and seven, right?’ Jinketsu sends, barely suppressing the shame from bleeding into his tone. Harry wonders why he feels this way. Its not his fault that his former teammates died.

‘One and three, as well.’

‘Let’s decode the text in question one first.’ Himari says.

 

As they help him answer the questions, shame coloring their tones because they know that he’s suffered for a long time and even though it was none of their business, they never did anything significant to help him, they never discouraged the horrible treatment he received, Harry thinks about how easier this would be if someone met his gaze, because then he’d slip into their mind and get the answers from them that way.

“ALL RIGHT!” the lead proctor of the first test, some leaf shinobi with a nasty scare running down his face in a diagonal line, suddenly speaks up. “Here’s the tenth question!”.

“What! There’s a tenth question!” some unbelievably loud blonde says, a dumbfounded look on his face.

‘That dumb blonde is probably a Jinchuriki.’ Choumei says.

“Really?” Harry asks, momentarily forgetting that he’s around other people.

‘He has a certain feel to him,’ the tailed beast says, in contemplation. ‘Very much like the chakra of my oldest brother.’

“A certain feel?”

‘Well it’s either that, or he’s the child of a female Jinchurki. Those whisker marks are all the evidence I need.’

“Interesting.” He says a bit warily.

‘He’s not like the other boy, this one. He has a finely made seal from what I can sense, with…….is that death chakra?’

“Death chakra?”

‘From the Shinigama, yes. Whoever made that seal must have summoned the Death God and used his power to seal my brother within that vessel.’

“It was the Yondaime Hokage who did it. They say he parished in battle after defeating the Nine Tails. Guess Konoha hasn’t been completely truthful about their  
history, but then again I can’t blame them, telling another country you’re in possession of a Jinchuriki is like asking for your Bijuu to be stolen or killed.”

‘We do not belong to anyone Harry. Remember, that even though we are friends, you are still my jailer.’ The Nanabi says, sounding miffed.

“We both know I didn’t mean it like that Choumei. But nonetheless, I’m sorry if I offended you. It was not my intention.”

 

It’s after finishing that sentence that he realizes the room has gone eerily quiet and the boy he’d been talking about with Choumei was giving him a weird look. Every, even the exam proctor with a scared face is looking at him.

He cringes, giving them a painfully awkward smile. “I hear voices in my head. Sometimes they talk to me.”  
Some people turn back around to the proctors, while other’s give him a suspicious glance before turning back around.

“As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted,” the man continues, but unfortunately, does not get to finish as the window on their break open and trench coat, fish net, short skirt wearing kunoichi swoops in.

“Don’t start celebrating now brats,” she says, removing glass from her brown coat. “because Mitarashi Anko, sexiest kunoichi in the village, is in the building.”

“Oh brother.” Someone besides him, a konoha genin by the look of it, says.

After the most recent encounter Harry’s had with that Kusa genin, who happened to stand next to him for obvious reason, he’s made it his mission to make sure that if they do cross paths, he takes her out. There is something wrong about her, something that fills him with an icy cold fury when he looks in her direction, a fury he’d only felt once in his life, the day he found out about that damn prophecy that got his parents and so many other people killed.

They just stepped into the Forest of Death after signing that stupid contract he hadn’t bothered to read (a very unwise decision, Ragnock would say) and Harry called a stop ten minutes into it.

“We need to wait this problem out.”

“What problem?” Himari asks, huffing a bit. Their pace has been grueling so far, it’s understandable.

“It’s a warzone out there. I can feel chakra signatures being snuffed out like bugs, we’re going to wait it out a bit.”

 

“We’re shinobi Fuu.” The Kazami says. “We take advantage of every situation and this one is perfect for getting a scroll, I mean whilst there's so much confusion. We came here to win, and that’s what we’ll do. We’re getting a heaven scroll and heading for the tower, now.”

 

“Wow, I’ve never heard you speak so much before.” Himari says lowly. “But he’s right Fuu. We have to use the situation at hand to our advantage. If we swoop in after the skirmishes have died down, we’re going to be faced with a lot of desperate people. And believe me, there’s nothing worse than fighting a desperate shinobi, they tend to be suicidal.”

Harry nods faintly, before his eyes narrow. “We’re being tailed. I almost missed the signature, because it’s almost like nature chakra.”

Jinketsu frowns thinking about the girl Harry had mentioned. “Is it that Kusa-nin?”

“No, it’s an animal.” Harry stands from his crouch. 

“Come on, let’s go.”

Just before they leap into the trees, Harry senses three signatures very close to their target. ‘Dammit. They must’ve slipped through my senses when I was focused on the summoning animal that’s following us.’

 

Even though he’s miffed about the situation, because it will waste their time, he can’t wait to get into his first battle as a shinobi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey fans, thanks for reading. Things about to get tense, the Akatsuki are moving in. Please leave kudos and comments and really appreciate it.


	9. Chapter 10

He slips ninja wire out his pouch, quickly throws it around a tree three meters his west all the whilst suspended midair, before swinging himself away from landing on the tree in front of him. His team, having already received a wordless warning some second ago, also scatter away from the branch they were set to leap on. 

Volleys of kunai imbed themselves on that branch.

Harry only has a second to catch his bearings before he finds himself sliding underneath a roundhouse kick.

Quickly swiping the legs underneath his enemy, he propels himself away from danger after sending a burst of chakra to his feet. Sticking himself on the vertical side of the nearest tree, he assesses the situation whilst his opponent gets up. There are three of them, a girl with pupil-less white eyes and a boy with canine features with a dog companion. The third member is standing right above them, a mid or long-range distance fighter, probably mediocre in taijutsu with a clan technique or kekkie genkai. (This is all speculation of course; the third member is well hidden, so Harry can only sense him).

The boy and his dog are really good. They’re holding off Jinketsu and Himari pretty well, but it’s obvious they won’t be able to keep up that pace for very long.

“Gentle Fist!”

“Shit.” 

The fist is anything but gentle; Harry can feel all the tenketsu in his side, right above the lungs, close up. He blocks the next charka infused strikes, batting away the girl’s hands fairly well, considering her speed. She’s good, has a lot of potential, but her kindness, the one that kept her from collapsing Harry’s lungs, because she could’ve done that, is what’s holding her back. 

He’s not going to provide her the same luxury though. 

 

Like a snake, he slides past her fists, then her guard before landing a bone crushing thrust on her lower right rib. He feels it bend and shatter under the face of his palm, before there’s that annoying pop of a substitution jutsu. 

“Damn.” He says, grinning as the girl appears some distance away from him. “Smart.”

“Fuu!”

“I know.” He shouts back at Himari. “Fire Style: Burning Body!”

The feel of fire natured chakra rushing through his already healed tenketsu can only be described as euphoric. Choumei says it’s because fire represents rebirth and Harry might as well have been reborn into this world. Harry doesn’t believe it’s that simple, it usually never is when he’s involved.

The bugs, Kikaichu according to what Harry’s read about Konoha’s bug users, all light up and burn when they settle down on him. It takes a few seconds for the bug boy to call off the attack. 

Harry focuses back on his opponent, the white eyed girl, who’s already leaping back towards him.

 

It’s a dance between them, one that the girl looks like she’ll lose. That is, until veins budge out from the sides of her face and her white pupil-less eyes visibly grow more enhanced. 

He quickly shifts to defensive, a pattern of dodge, block, and slide away because her attacks have just gotten more brutal. It’s obvious she’s coated her hands with chakra, they’re glowing blue.

He catches her leg, coating his hands with chakra and sticking them to her trousers. Then, with another burst of chakra to his arm biceps and triceps, he twists once, twice, and then tosses her at her dog boy teammate. Unfortunately bug boy swoops in and catches her before she makes contact, but Harry takes advantage of the situation.

 

They call him a pyromaniac back in Taki for a reason.  
He only does a tiger seal when performing Fire Style. It’s just like with his magic, all that’s needed is for him to command his chakra and the rest happens for itself.

 

“Fire Style: Demon Lantern.”

 

This is Harry’s second favorite jutsu for a reason. It feels like playing a video game when he sends those creepy demonic heads made of fire at his target. He’s embarrassed to admit that slightly maniacal giggle slips through his lips as they erupt and blow up in large dangerous flames. 

 

The Leaf genin dodge nicely and Harry feels a bit sad that they’re going to die. 

“Fire Style: Fireball.”

“Light Style: Solar Flare!”

 

‘Damn you, Himari!’ he thinks as he gets blinded and his fireball goes askew. He almost burns his throat from how bad the light startles him.

 

“Everyone just wait a minute!” Himari says, calling a stop to the fight. “There’s no point in fighting each other if we don’t even know what scrolls we have. We’ll only be wasting chakra.”

 

“She’s right.” Bug boy says, landing next to the dog boy. “Its best if-“

“Hey Shino, shut up for a minute!” Dog boy says. “They might lie to us and we could lose the chance to get a scroll. Since they came up with the idea to stop fighting, they should tell us what scroll they’re carrying.”

“You’re in no position to make demands, especially because it does not look like you were winning this battle. My teammates and I were going easy on you.” Jinketsu says.

“T-they’re right K-Kiba-kun.” The white eyed girl stutters out.

“How about we just show each other our scrolls, and then fight if we have to or go our separate ways if the situation calls for it.” Harry says. 

 

“We have a Heaven Scroll, as you can see. “ The bug boy, Shino says, showing them their scroll.

Himari shows them her team’s scroll. “We have the same scroll, so there’s no point in us fighting.”

“We’ll just go our separate ways now, alright.” Shino says. “Let’s go.” 

 

“That was entirely unorthodox.” Jinketsu comments. 

“Are all Konoha shinobi idiots?”

“I think they were scared.” Himari says the mirth audible in her voice even as the wind screams in all their ears.

“We were kind of intimidating, you know.”

“Still, they could’ve outsmarted us. Strength isn’t always in the amount of chakra or jutsu a shinobi can perform. It’s also in the mind“ Harry says. “They’ve just made more competition for themselves, because we are searching for the same scroll.”

 

They go silent.

 

The sun’s barely visible through the thick cover of the forests Iron trees, but Harry can make out its position. They have a few hours before stopping for a late lunch.

“Is their dog still following us?” Jinketsu asks, because he’s a paranoid bastard (Harry thinks with an eye roll). 

“The dog wasn’t what was following us.”

“What?” Himari questions. 

“That dog was a nin-ken.”

“What’s the difference?” Jinketsu asks, sounding perplexed. “I thought nin-ken could be summoned as well.”

“True, but those nin-ken use their own chakra. Most summons use nature charka you see. It’s why people with this knowledge will always have a summon, a regular shinobi can’t sense them. 

Just think of that puppy as a ninja dog, alright.” He adds when it looks like he’s confusing the Kazami heir.

“So we’re being followed by a summon?” Himari asks.

“Definitely and it’s not a dog, at least I don’t think it is.” Harry says.

‘My brother’s just been cut off.’ 

“What?” Harry says, coming to a stop.

‘I can’t feel his chakra anymore.’ Choumei says, trying to sound anything but panicked. ‘You have to find out what’s going on’

“Now’s not a good time. I’m kinda in the middle of an exam.”

‘Harry, please. I just want to know if the Nine Tails is alright.’

“What’s wrong?” Himari asks, coming to a stop next to him.

“A fellow Jinchuriki of mine is need of help, I think.” He says, reaching into his pouch and taking out a kunai from it. “This kunai has my chakra signature on it; don’t lose it. I’ll be using that to track you.”

“You can’t go. We’re in the middle of an exam, Fuu.” Jinketsu says.

“I just said a Jinchuriki was in trouble.”

“Jinketsu’s right. We’re in an exam Fuu, people die here all the time..”

“You know what; I have a giant bug living inside my head. Its buzz isn’t the only thing annoying about it, ok. You aren’t the one’s who’ll get a constant buzz in your ear if I ignore him, so please, let me go.” He says, giving them both a pleading glance. 

 

 

Sakura is trembling. She’s trembling so hard she feels like for one moment, the atoms that make up her body will momentarily split apart as the intermolecular forces holding them together will grow weak from the all the vibrating she’s doing and she’ll slide right out her shoes and clothes. Even her Inner-self is quiet, they’re both scared shitless.

The creepy Kusa girl, who’d attacked them even though they had the same scroll (foolish and pointless if you ask Sakura, a waste of chakra really) had turned out to be an even creepier S-Ranked missing-nin man. 

 

Orochimaru. 

 

Fucking Orochimaru (gods forgive her for swearing).

A former member of the Legendary Sannin.

They were doomed even before they knew it. Sakura has just sent a kunai flying into the large collar of Naruto’s hideous jumpsuit (seriously need to take him shopping someday, she thinks a bit hysterically) so that he doesn’t go falling to his death after Orochimaru hit his abdomen with his glowing fingers. 

She’s very curious about Naruto’s eyes turning red and foxlike. She’s also curious about that evil chakra. It’s the second time she’s felt it and it makes her stomach churn and bile gather at the back of her throat.   
Now Orochimaru is opening his mouth whist his neck is stretching his head towards Sasuke who looks like he can barely do anything but stand!

“Sasuke!!!” she screams, louder then she’s ever before. That’s the boy she loves, about to be impaled by teeth.  
(Some asshole god out there reading her thoughts snickers so hard he almost falls over. Teeth? Seriously?)  
Then suddenly, like an angel or heroine or something, a green haired girl wearing white (she looks really good in the colour for some reason) suddenly appears in-between Sasuke and the infamous missing-nin. Sakura’s gotta hand it to this angel heroine girl; she only looks confused for like one second before she’s snapping her fist back and punching Orochimaru so hard they can all hear the snap of his jaw getting dislocated.

The fight that follows is one that she’ll remember for a long time; it will be her motivation to get stronger. 

“I should’ve known you were the creepy Kusa-nin. Not that many Snake Sages can be found in the Elemental Nations.”

“I’m the only one.” Orochimaru says, after snapping his jaw back into place. “I’m surprised Jiraiya gave a Taki shinobi a toad summoning contract.”

“What makes you think that?” the green haired girl asks. (She’s really pretty, even when she looks like she’s about to murder Orochimaru).

“You’re a Sage as well.” Orochimaru pauses, giving the girl a once over. “Or maybe something more. A gift you acquired from your tenant I presume?"  
A horrible inhuman sound builds up in the girl’s throat, her glare at Orochimaru turning venomous. “You’re not supposed to know that.”  
“It was pretty obvious you were a Jinchuriki the moment I laid my eyes on you in Taki. Everyone seemed to hate you for no apparent reason. I put two and two together……and here we are.”

“Secret Tradition: Scaled Sneak.” 

 

Having leapt over Orochimaru as she spoke out her jutsu, she expels a fine powder from her mouth that looks like it has a luminous quality. 

The whole area goes white. 

 

Sakura hears growls and the clangs of metal meeting metal before there's a loud splash.

 

Orochimaru turns out to be a mud clone.

 

It makes sense really, Orochimaru is S-ranked. They are genin. He isn’t going to go down that easy. 

The girl makes a tiger seal, before stretching her lungs pretty widely with the way she inhales, then lets out an impossibly large blue flame. 

 

It burns everything in its path, burns the Iron tress that supposedly don’t burn. Sakura knows that that fire is hotter than normal fire, its blue which means there’s complete combustion, a large supply of oxygen. She’s never seen a blue fire jutsu before, she’s never heard of one either. It’s unheard of, impossible.

She doesn’t know how Orochimaru dodges, but he does, because he gets out of it alive, but his right arm has been completely cooked. The smell makes of it Sakura want to gag.

 

“You’ll pay for that you insolent brat.” The white skinned man hisses before rushing at the genin.

Sakura takes her eyes off them for a while, quickly running over to Sasuke who’s finally fallen over from the strain of chakra exhaustion. Just as she’s about to pick him up, they both get blown away by an explosion of blue. It isn’t blue fire this time, but it’s something luminescent blue. 

Slender arms wind around her stopping her before she collides painfully with a tree. For one brief second she thinks it’s Sasuke, but when she looks to her right, the girl is holding Sasuke up on a close by branch. 

 

“Are you alright?” the girl asks softly from behind Sakura. 

Clones then, but what type she thinks. Another clone settles down next to her holding an unconscious Naruto.   
The fight is still going on, but it’s on the ground. 

A ninjustu battle, the first one Sakura’s witnessed (not counting Kakashi-sensei and Zabuza’s fight, Sakura hadn’t seen much because of the mist). Orochimaru is using Earth based ninjustu to combat the green haired girl’s monstrous Fire Style techniques. 

 

‘I’ve never seen a genin dish out jutsu of this proportion. It’s incredible.’

 

She only realizes she’s been talking out loud when the girl thanks her. “But I’m no ordinary genin.” 

 

“Fire Style: Flame Vortex!” the flames roar out of the girls mouth, burning furiously towards Orochimaru, who simply flies through a set of hand signs.

“Earth Style: Earth Rising Wall!” a large muddy wall rises from the ground, dousing and stopping the fire reaching it's target. With deadly hiss, Orochimaru swirves around, already flying through a second set of hand signs.

“Fire Style: Great Dragon Flame!” “Earth Style: Earth Land Flip!”

 

The girl curses as the earth wall collapses under her Fire Style jutsu. Unlike the other elements, water, air, lightening and fire, earth is not an element that does as you command. It needs contact with your chakra before it even starts forming your attack. It’s an element that works with force and imagination, once you’ve made contact using your chakra, every single grain of sand and rock will be under your command until your chakra runs out or you break the connection.   
Because the wall was fairly high, she has a lot to dodge. 

 

 

“Earth Style: Earth Flow Rampart!”

 

Harry soon realizes he’s not going to win the battle when his foot gets impaled by a spike that spring out from underneath him. “Fuck,” he curses, breaking the spike and freeing his leg. “Sectumsempra!” he says, casting a cutting curse at the snake freak.

 

True to his nature, he slips past Harry’s curse, giving the tree next to him, that had just been severed through and through with a muttered word from the boy, a curious look. That was definitely nature energy the vessel had used.

 

Said vessel leaps back into the trees, takes a position next to his clones before crouching. “I need to concentrate. Stall him for me.”

“You got it boss!” the clones say in unison before leaping towards the snake Sannin. Harry gives the pink haired girl and her teammates a short glance before closing his eyes. His chakra is running a bit low and he can’t risk taking anymore of Choumie’s chakra to help him continue fighting, his damn body has reached its limits. 

He gathers some nature chakra, no doubt Orochimaru knows what he’s doing, doesn’t take too much, just a bit and thoroughly mixes it with what little of his own chakra he has then he lets it slip into the trees around him. Then after that, the complicated part comes. His conscious, which he connects to his chakra, slips into the trees. Then he uses the connection all plants have through nature to travel around the damnable forest in search of his chakra signature, the one on the kunai he left with his team.

Three explosions, starting off in cohesion, whip the hair away from his face just as he finds his them. His Fire clones had been taken out then. He opens his eyes to the blade of a sword coming his way.

“Potrego maxima!”

The blue dome forms around him and the three Konoha genin, Orochimaru’s sword strike proving useless against Harry’s barrier charm. With a firm grasp on the magic holding the dome together, Harry gives Orochimaru a nasty smirk.   
“Dispersa!”

Like a barely visible explosion, the Potrego spreads out, batting Orochimaru away like an annoying fly. All the still standing trees as well as the burned stumps are uprooted and blasted away. The only tree left standing is the one Harry and the Konoha-nin (who are gapping like fish out of water) and the land around them, stretching out around about half a mile is clear land.  
Harry can barely keep his eyes open then, but he still has to get these idiot genin to safety. Damn Choumei and damn his saving people thing. 

 

With the last bit of energy he can muster, he creates a portkey out of one of his kunai. “Hey, hold on to my kunai. I’m getting us out of here.” he wheezes out. The girl quickly does as he says, but the dark haired boy gives him a suspicious look.

 

Harry rolls his eyes, because did he not just save them. “Orochimaru is very much alive and kicking, his chakra has even been depleted halfway whilst I on the other hand am probably going to die from chakra exhaustion. The longer we spend here, the most likely we are to die. Orochimaru is not happy.” He says, taking ahold of the blonde Jinchuriki. “So hold the damn kunai, would ya.” 

 

With a dizzying swirl, they’re whisked away from danger.

 

“The fuck,” Anko says, looking at the expanse of clear land. To think genin could learn jutsu this devastating was a bit worrying. Hopefully they’re Konoha shinobi.  
“We should report this to the Hokage.” Yugao, also known as Owl says, through her AnBu mask.  
Anko looks at Yugao. “What do you think happened here?”

 

“An A-ranked ninjustu battle, definitely. I think the Jinchuriki were probably involved.”

“You mean the dumb fox brat and the sand panda bear?”  
Anko can feel Yugao giving her a dry glance even through the slits of her mask. “No. According to Raven, the Suna Jinchuriki did not take to the Taki Jinchuriki. At all.”

“Wait a minute, there are three Jinchuriki in the village and no one told me.”

“With good reason Anko.” 

“What was I gonna-“ her speech is cut off when the cursed mark on her neck throbs painfully. “He’s here. Fucking Orochimaru is here. Of course he’s here. Two foreign Jinchuriki, I mean it makes sense now. Why would Taki send their Jinchuriki to a village they have no alliance with, unless it was to team up with Orochimaru and Suna to take us out.”

“Anko, I don’t need to tell you how farfetched that sounds. We are on good terms with Taki, last I checked.”

“It makes perfect sense.” She says, ignoring the purple haired woman besides her. “Come on, the Hokage has to hear this.”


	10. Chapter 11

_**He doesn't know why he's here, watching this particular memory, but Harry doesn't care. Its one of his most precious, one of the few times in this life where he's felt weightless without the aid of wings to keep him in the air.** _

_**"Come on Harry," Tsugaro says, voice low, a bit frustrated sounding but infinitely patient. "tell me you haven't felt something and I'll drop it."** _

  
_**"Of course I have." Harry says, turning away from the beautiful view of Taki, shining brightly beneath them from above the village monument (the real one, being the huge tree of course). "I'd be a fool not to. But Tsugaro, you've done so much for me and I feel like....I feel like—"** _

 

 

_**"I love you."** _

 

 

_**Harry breath catches. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't expecting something like this.** _

 

_**They've gotten close, so much closer than friends do—whenever Tsugaro touches his hand or his cheek, its exhilarating, it feels like a thousand little fairies dancing on the trail of caresses he leaves behind (and in his chest)—but Harry can't think like that.** _

_**He never would've thought they'd get here, because of the differences between them. But being Harry's friend has changed Tsugaro alot, made him into this beautiful human being.** _

_**He's kind, to everyone, even those vile civilians that love throwing things at Harry. He's bright, not just in intellect, but also personality wise. He makes you smile when you don't want to, soothes Harry's aches like no one's ever been able to, he lights up the room when gets in it and he's generally the most happiest person Harry has ever seen.** _

 

_**He's so achingly handsome though.** _

 

_**No one can deny that. Not the girls and guys that are always trying to get his attention someway or the other, not even Harry can deny it. Tsugaro looks like a fucking Japanese ken-doll Greek god combo. He's gorgeous!** _

  
_**"Tsugaro, you don't mean that." Oh he knows it true, but Harry can't have this. It will complicate everything.** _

  
_**"I do, I really do." And there it is again, the undying devotion and love in his gaze, the odd softness (its odd because Tsugaro has some pretty course hands) left behind when he touches Harry's cheek. The tenderness is almost enough to make him swoon.** _

 

  
_**"I'm a curse, I'll ruin you." He says, and its so true it hurts. But Tsugaro won't except that, Harry can see it in his eyes.** _

  
_**"You won't."** _

  
_**"Tsugaro." He says, his voice hard. "I never get to keep those that I love. My parents, my children, my old friends... Even my wife. I'm Faith's favorite chew toy, I'm her bitch. I'll ruin you."** _

  
_**"Maybe this is your chance to he happy. Maybe Faith has finally given you peace, in me," he says, a cocky little smirk on his lips, "give us a chance. I promise you won't loose me."** _

  
_**"You can't promise me that." Harry sighs.** _

  
_**"I thought I was the know it all," Tsugaro says with an eye roll. "You are the most bravest, most resilient and prettiest," this time he winks, drawing a startled laugh from Harry, "person I've had the pleasure of meeting. Nothing short of the Shinigama...actually, not even the he will keep me from you."** _

_**"Have you been reading poetry again?" Harry teases. The little blush that dusts Tsugaro's cheeks is enough tostarlte another chuckle from Harry. "Who would've known that you'd grow to be a charmer."** _

  
_**"Ha ha ha," Tsugaro drawls out with a smile. "We can't all be perfect like you."** _

  
_**"I'm not perfect."** _

  
_**"Yes you are. At least to me that is...and I'm the only one that matters." He says, with a healthy amouth of cheek in his voice.** _

  
_**"There he is.." Harry says softly. "The asswipe, entitled, know it all I'm familiar with."** _

 

  
_**Tsugaro snorts. "What did I do?"** _

 

 

_**The memory starts to fade and Harry wakes up.** _

 

 

“Fuck me George.” Are the first words that out of Harry's mouth.

“What’s a george and why do you want it to fuck you?” Himari asks amusedly, helping the seventeen year old up.

“I’m dying; this is no time for jokes.” He says, groaning

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I fought an S-ranked shinobi and barely got away with all my limbs intact.”

Himari laughs quietly behind her hand. “About that….”

“You brought that back with you.” Jinketsu says, standing at the mouth of the opening between roots they’re camped in

Harry rolls his eyes, looking at the dark haired boy he’d saved. The Konoha genin are all awake, minus the blonde Jinchuriki, and even though they still roughed up it looks like Himari provided them with first aid and bandages. “To be fair, I fought the moment I got there. It’s not my fault I didn’t take the time to look at any defining clothing or features to determine if the boy was an Uchiha and if it would be the right thing to do to just leave him behind for Orochimaru to have, so that I can save my poor emotionally constipated team member's pride.”

“Hn.” Jinketsu says, and a pout definitely does not make its way onto his lips

"Are you two alright?” Harry asks.

“We’re fine thanks.” The pink haired girl says after looking at the Uchiha for approval.

“My name’s Fuu.”

“I’m Sakura.” She says, smiling faintly. “And this is Sasuke.” She hastily adds when the raven head stays silent. (Rude)

“He hasn’t woken up?” He asks, gesturing at the blonde

“Not even once. I’ve checked him over and there’s nothing wrong that I could find. He’s healthy, a little malnourished with a dangerous amount of sodium in his body, but healthy nonetheless.

“Is there anything Orochimaru did to him?” he asks Sakura as he crawls over to where the blonde is laid on the ground.

“Well, he hit Naruto in the abdomen. With glowing fingers.”

“It was probably a seal then.”  
He unzips the blonde’s jacket before rolling up his t-shirt and exposing his mid-section.

“What are you looking for?” Jinketsu asks, crouching down on his left side

“Something out of place. A seal appears on a carrier body if you channel chakra through it.” Gathering chakra on the palm of his hand, he lays it across Naruto’s abdomen. “Jesus.” He breaths out in awe as the seal appears.

 

“Is that good or bad?” Himari asks, having crouched down on his right.

Harry looks at the blonde's team. Pinky is watching them curiously whilst blacky is trying to hide just how curious he is.  
He runs a his finger along the swirl running around the blonde’s abdomen. “It is a Double Tetragram seal, undoubtedly Uzumaki. I mean look at those matrixes, you won’t find them anywhere but in the memories of all those dead Uzumaki that were slaughtered in Uzushio and," he pauses "apparently the guy that created this seal.” He palms the whole seal, his hand lighting up in a more vibrant blue. “From what I can tell it has an 8 sign seal, which leaves a space in between the blonde kid’s chakra and that of the thing inside of him,” He rambles underneath his breath, looking back at the blondes teammates….. Good, they were confused. “so that if any of the thing’s chakra is released it will form into blondie’s chakra. Basically it’s perfection when you consider his situation; it adapts the kid to using the thing’s chakra.”

“You can tell all this just by looking at it?” Jinketsu asks with a raised brow.

“Of course not. Only someone with level 9 Mastery in Fuinjutsu can read this. I’m level five at best.” He says, removing his hand from the boy’s belly. “There are ways around it though. I used my chakra to map out what I can’t see or understand and it painted a picture for me. But seriously speaking, there are so many uses of chakra that most shinobi don’t know about. It’s not just for making flashy explosions, you know.”

“So what’s wrong with the kid?” Himari asks.

“His name is Naruto.” Sakura says.

“Well, there’s a 5 pronged seal Orochimaru must have put there. It has the qualities of a Reverse Tetragram seal, which means it’s,” He says, giving his teammates a look. “messing up ‘Naruto’s’ chakra system. The reason you didn’t find anything wrong is because theoretically there isn’t. It’s just that Naruto’s body is used to functioning with that thing’s chakra mixed up with his own, so his system is probably just confused or something.”

“That thing you keep mentioning,” Sakura says lowly, scared “is it what turned Naruto’s eyes red and...um creepy, I guess?”

“It’s not my place to say.” Harry says slowly. Good thing he hadn’t said anything about Naruto being a Jinchuriki, because it was clear his teammates didn’t know.

“Can you remove Orochimaru’s seal?” Himari asks.

“All that I know about these types of seals is mostly theoretical. A level Five Fuinjutsu Mastery is just a fancy name given to someone who can photocopy seals. I can’t risk it, especially when a life’s involved.” He sighs loudly. “How long have I been out?”

“Thirteen hours.” Jinketsu says, annoyed.

“What? Really?”

“Your chakra was pretty low when you guys find us. You were already out cold.” Himari says amusedly. “But don’t worry, we have an Earth scroll. We nabbed it off of a corpse that was half buried in sand.”

“Do you have all the scrolls you need?” he asks Sakura.

“Yes we do. Your team was kind enough to accompany us when we ventured out to get one.”

“You left blondie and I all alone?” he says, giving his team a stink eye.

“There was a genjustu over this place. No one would’ve found you, least of all a genin.”

Harry rolls his eyes at Jinketsu condescending tone. “I’m going to meditate and then we’re leaving for the tower. I’ve had enough of this damn forest.”  
His stomach growls very loudly. “Maybe after I eat something.”

 

  
“What a drag.” Shikamaru says as Ino starts hitting Chouji over the head for some reason or another. Shikamaru just wants to get out this damn forest.

It’s been two days since the second part of the exam started and he's got one thing to say about all this.

Ligers are now his least favorite animals……………. scratch that. Animals are now his least favorite anything, except deer. Shikamaru likes deer (them being his clan animal has nothing to do with it, he genuinely likes them). He hates insects too, especially bugs. Not forgetting venomous flesh eating plants, he absolutely loathes those.

“Hey, Shikamaru?” Ino calls, sounding inquisitive.

“Yes Ino.” He says, long-sufferingly.

“Remember those two girls, the ones who asked us to join them for Yakiniku at the Barbeque restaurant?”

“Yeah, I remember them.” He says, giving her a narrow-eyed glance at the corner of his eye. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I haven’t been able to think about much but what happened between the green haired girl and that creepy sand boy.”  
“Yeah, that was some freaky stuff if you ask me.” Chouji adds.

 

Truth be told, Shikamaru hasn’t been able to stop thinking about those two either, more the green haired girl then the crazy sand boy. There had been something there, something that had pulsed between them when their eyes had met. Shikamaru had felt his heart give a hard beat and he had almost chocked on the air in his lungs. He doesn’t know why that happened, can’t even think of a reason why he’d react that particular way just from looking into someone else’s eyes.

“I’m not sensory type or anything, but I can tell you this. Those two were pretty strong.” Ino says, wiping the sweat of her forehead. “My dad says that when you feel the hair at the back of your neck stand, there’s a predator near. In our case that’s enemy shinobi who has a higher level of chakra than us. I felt that way around those two.”

No kidding, Shikamaru had felt the fine hairs on his ass stand to attention. The killing intent from the creepy sand boy almost brought him to his knees. If those AnBu hadn’t interfered, Shikamaru is pretty sure someone would’ve died.

“Yeah, me-“ Chouji goes silent at the sound of approaching voices. They all grab a kunai and let their guard up.

"How did you do that? Whisk us away from danger, I mean?” one voice asks, a familiar voice if you ask Shikamaru.

“It’s a technique I developed. With the help of some pretty basic seals, I was able to anchor a body flicker onto my kunai.” The other voice says.

 

Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

 

“I’m still a bit baffled. How is it you’re not a chunin or jonin? I mean, you went up against an S-ranked shinobi and lived to tell the tale.” The familiar voice asks again.

“I can say the same about you.” Another cheery voice adds. “You’re still very much alive.”

“If we’re being completely honest, Orochimaru could’ve killed all four of you without you even knowing it, if what you fought was an S-ranked battle. He’s a missing—nin with no place in this village, the last thing he needs to do is draw attention to himself. So, he’s obviously going to suppress his chakra and use only a small amount of it which basically narrows down the number and types of jutsu he can perform.” Another voice, definitely male, says, sounding condescending.

 

The group goes silent.

 

“There are people close by.” The cheery female voice says. “Should we kill them?”

“They could be a team from our village.”

“That is definitely forehead girl.” Ino says, standing up.

“Ino, you’re gonna get us killed.” Chouji whispers frantically.

“I wonder if she’s with Sasuke!”

“Troublesome.” Shikamaru says under his breath, following his teammate. “We might as well go. Our position’s been compromised.”

“Shikamaru!”


	11. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talks

_**The rain is ever falling, ever bathing Amegakure in a despondent light. It’s as if it personifies the sadness and the suffering she bared at the hands of the Five Great Nations.** _

__

_**Above the hulking, twisting masses of steel stands a figure. Piercings of metal rods litter what little of his body that isn’t covered up by the black cloak he’s in, a permanently blank look etched on his sickly pale skin as his purple ringed eyes observe the dank city bellow with his soft looking orange spikes of hair moving along with the rhythm of the wind.** _

_**“Don’t tell me you actually believe what Orochimaru’s message said.” Konan says, quietly, but her soft voice conveys just how much disbelief she’s in.** _

_**“I didn’t, not for a second. I’d never be foolish enough to believe a word that comes out of that traitor’s mouth. But his message concerns Jinchuriki, so whatever he said is worth exploring, even with possibility of it not being true.” He says, turning around and piercing the blue haired woman standing a ways behind him with his oh so purple gaze. “Zetsu is very good at gathering information. We were lucky enough that Orochimaru led us in the right direction.”** _

_**“So what’s the plan of action?”** _

_**“We’ll have to approach this with caution. The Jinchuriki will be highly guarded, especially because tensions are high with four of the Five Great Nations participating in the chunin exams. The Nanabi and Ichibi Jinchuriki will be vulnerable when Orochimaru’s invasion begins, we can always slip away with them during the confusion. If that fails, then we will come after them when they journey back to their villages.”** _

_**“You assume Orochimaru’s invasion will not succeed?”** _   
_**Pein turns his gaze back to the bustling city below. “I’m considering every angle. If his invasion succeeds, he will hand us over the three Jinchuriki. If it doesn’t, we will snatch the Nanabi and Ichibi away.”** _

_**“And what of the Nine Tails?” a deep voice asks.** _

__

_**Konan’s flinch is violent and short, barely visible to the normal eye, but very much visible to the red irises watching her behind that orange masks she loathes with her every being. She can feel his mirth at her fright as he spares her a casual (mocking) glance, his body slowly rising, sliding into tangibility when his feet are level with the ground. He has never liked Konan, she saw through his bullshit the moment he opened his mouth. She knows that they do not have the same goals as he likes to put it.** _

__

_**“Madara.” Pein acknowledges, having sensed his presence in Amegakure the moment he teleported there.** _

_**“I will personally retrieve the Nine Tails when the time comes. One of my genin platoons were tasked with discreetly laying summoning formula directly linked to me in an inconspicuous location inside the Hidden Leaf.”** _

_**“Seems like you aren’t in need of my assistance.” Madara observes. The glee in his voice is almost tangible.** _

_**The Akatsuki only have Utukata and Yugara to collect after Fū, Sabaku and Uzumaki are caught, then they’re objective will be complete. Konan looks at Pein and thinks of Yahiko, thinks of what he’d say if he saw what his two best friends have been up to since his death.** _

__

_**World domination.** _

__

_**She’d said the words once, in the dead of the night, wrapped around the safety of the four walls of her bedroom. They had tasted like ash.** _

_**For the thousandth, maybe millionth time she thinks about the morality in what they’re doing. She knows how Jinchuriki are treated, has seen how they are treated first hand, but she stands here and condemns them to a painful death, having their life blood sucked out of them. All their lives, people take from them, they take their freedom, their happiness, take their well-being, their will.** _

__

_**She looks away from the reanimated corpse of her once dead friend; she always does when the guilt clogs her heart.** _

__

_**She hopes she isn’t condemning the world and its people to a sad existence. She’s only just reached her thirties, but she’s can barely wake up in the morning. If not for the dream of peace, she would have ended her life the day Yahiko was taken from them.** _   
_**“Konan?” Pein calls. There’s no sign of the warmth that Yahiko always spoke with nor the kindness that lied within Nagato’s gaze when she meets the purple of her friend’s Rinnegan. It’s cold calculating that meets her gaze. “Is anything the matter?”** _

__

_**She wants to speak her mind, wants to ask him what Yahiko would think.** _

__

_**“Forgive me; I’m a little distracted today. I have many responsibilities to tend to.” She says instead, guilt settling in her middle and making her nauseous.** _

__

 

 

Present day:

“I hope what you have to tell me is important, a Hokage doesn’t leave his village just for anything.” Hiruzen says, staring down at his once almost successor.

 

Itachi meets the heavy stare with a blank one, his emotions firmly locked behind a strong mental barrier. He always feels a bit unstable around the Third, a jumble of confusing feelings. He doesn’t know what to feel about him sometimes, because some things about his personality seem to shine through whenever Itachi isn’t around him or thinking of Konoha. Yes the man does all he can to protect his village, but like so many others, he’s prone to cutting corners. Like letting the elders deal with the massacre of his clan.

Itachi knows Hiruzen knew what Danzo, Homaru and Koharu were up to, knows that he probably hadn’t done anything to stop the eradication of his clan because of the prejudice he shared with the other three where the Uchiha were concerned. He hadn’t done anything to help Itachi, had done nothing to appease the Uchiha’s bruised pride. It’s almost as if he’d wanted the outcome, as if he hadn’t wanted to dirty his hands.

 

Itachi hadn’t thought ill of his family and had felt remorse for every life he’d claimed that night. It would forever haunt him how the blade of his sword had slid across the necks of infants, toddlers………he breaks the train of thought, stopping a shudder before it can physically run across his body. “The Akatsuki is on the move. They plan to claim the three Jinchuriki in the Hidden Leaf during Orochimaru’s invasion, which, I hope you’re already aware of.”

 

“So they’ve decided to move along with their plan.”

 

Hiruzen observes. “Why is it you chose to tell me this personally Itachi?”

“Suspicious eyes have been cast on me as of late, more so than usually, especially since you’ve been anticipating the enemy’s moves almost accurately.”

 

“I’ll endeavour to keep some information to myself then; a few lost battles will go a long way in defeating what it has planned for us.”

Itachi gives the Hokage a silent, searching look. He thinks perhaps for the first time in a while he’s seeing what type of a world he’s living in.

 

Shinobi are just pawns.

 

Pawns led by string in different directions. But try as he might, he still has no idea to what end. What happens after the Akatsuki has been defeated? Will there be peace?

 

No, Itachi is not an optimist, never has been. He’s always looked at a situation from a logical point of view, like concerning the fate of his clan. He could’ve let the rebellion go on and doomed the world to another Shinobi War, but that was illogical. What were 500 lives compared to millions? But then what happened after? Konoha still has issues, the Hyuuga oppressed each other with that disgusting seal, the Hokage let people like Danzo run around and pull strings from within the shadows. The issues were so much more he’d count them out for the whole day, but what was the point of contemplating? He was playing his part as a pawn and one day when his little brother got stronger, he would redeem Itachi with death.

 

No, after the Akatsuki, the world would face another problem. It may be within individual villages, it may be each village going at each other, but as long as there are shinobi, the cycle of hatred, mistrust, bloodlust, greed, perversion and so much more evil would continue.

 

“Was that all?” Hiruzen asks, already slipping into the shadows of the forest surrounding Sagano village, 300 miles northeast the gates of Konoha.

 

“Hai, Hokage-sama.”

 

“Then have a safe journey back to your partner Itachi.”

 

 

“It’s safe to assume that Taki might just be involved in the coming invasion.”

“They have the smallest platoon of genin in our village. I think maybe your deduction is incorrect, Danzo.” Koharu says, adjusting the tight bun of hair pulled up her head. The sun is oddly vacant today, hiding behind angry black storm clouds that stretch far beyond what of the horizon she can see. It’s abnormal for it to be this cloudy at this time of the year, especially in the northern parts of the Fire Country.

 

“Yes, I have to agree with Koharu on this one.” Homaru says.

 

The muscles on Danzo’s face may look immovable to anyone else, but Koharu’s spent the better part of her life working closely with this man. She sees the almost-scowl on his face, knows that he’s annoyed that she and Homaru aren’t just falling into step. She can easily see through his poker face, and thus can see whenever he’s gearing to manipulate them.

Like now.

 

“I came to the same conclusion a while ago, but I hadn’t known then that the Taki Jinchuriki was trying to turn Uzumaki against us.”

 

“Are your sources plausible? Because I can tell you that the Uzumaki boy is fiercely loyal to the Hokage and this village, regardless of the way he is treated.” She says, almost snorting in disgust when Homaru shifts uncomfortably besides her.

He, they all, could’ve done something to make the Uzumaki boy’s life better, but instead, they had made things very hard for him. Homaru was too soft hearted, feeling empathy for the boy because of his fondness for Namikaze Minato. Koharu sniffs in derision, the fool.

She’s has never pretended to like the boy and she never will. She’s a shinobi first and foremost and she’ll always consider threats. Uzumaki is a threat, whether Hiruzen acknowledges that or not, and since Koharu has no say in the creation of Jinchuriki, because she loathes the whole system and thinks the Shodai was very foolish to trap those creatures and sell them to the other nations, hates that a human can be trusted with that much power, she can only watch from the shadows and hope he won’t turn against the village, it’s is why she approved of so many things that have made his life heard.

Like when Hiruzen suggested not telling him of his legacy, or when Danzo decided to spread the rumours around the village about his Jinchuriki status. There was no need to make the boy feel privileged. Making him grow up in an environment like that would guarantee a strong bond between him and the one he considered his saviour.

 

Thank Kami Hiruzen had stepped in at that point. She would’ve preferred it if Danzo had taken the boy under his wing, made him irrevocably loyal to the village. She doesn’t like his methods, but she admits they give impressive results.

 

“Either way, all suspicions should be looked into. It’s far too coincidental for Taki to send their Jinchuriki to our village when Orochimaru is planning to launch an invasion with the assistance of Suna and her Jinchuriki. We must assume that they are cahoots.” Danzo says.

 

“Our moles in Kagano did say there were missives exchanged between the two country’s Daimyo.” Homaru says, rubbing his bearded chin. “It’s possible the villages are planning a treaty.”

 

“Both of you can sit here and contemplate about Taki’s involvement all day if you want, but at the end of the day I want you to consider the ramifications of angering Taki. Our relations with Kumo and Kiri aren’t exactly going well and let’s not forget our dearest friend, Iwa.” She says dryly, with a a raised sarcastic brow. "If we go to war with them, we’ll most likely loose because we do not have any strong allies outside the walls of our village. Our only ally, Suna, is going to invade us any day now.”

  
“What do we do then? Sit here and wait to be invaded?” Homaru asks, sounding frustrated and scared. The damn coward.

  
“We continue observing the boy. If there’s any suspicious behaviour then we’ll bring him into our custody.”

 

 

 

The three share looks before nodding.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Important note

So I'm officially done updating...yaya! I'm doing the victory dance (^_^) I'm so happy I'm done....now I can move forward.

So you'll notice that Harry is now actually 17...its not going to complicate things with Shikamaru, age is just a number and its not like he's fifty or something.

I still have no idea how they'll get together, because I love Tsugaro...he's like my dream asshole boyfriend, lol...anyway, this story is Harry|Fū x Shikamaru endgame, they will get together, don't worry much.

And I put a tag for character death...some people will die off guys, important people, I can't make the war easy. I mean, it wasn't easy, I just finished the anime today, so I know it wasn't easy...but nje shits gonna happen during the war, don't expect it to go canon... Like right now I'm just looking forward to introducing the other jinchuriki and Kate...I hope they won't he ooc....I'll be posting chapter thirteen tomorrow...

So I can't wait for your comments and shit!

I lurve u guys, like for real and I can't wait to hear what you'll have to say about the newish Perseverance!

I await your judgement my dear readers!

Ja ne!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So here's another chapter. Hope you enjoy....please please comment! I appreciate the input, and also leave kudos if you can, haha...

 

 

‘There it is again’ Harry thinks, when his heart skips a beat. It’s confusing, that those dull brown (but sharp) eyes can be so…captivating.

It’s baffling enough to have him almost trip on an exposed root. He doesn’t file this away for later thought; instead he completely removes it from his mind. He cannot even think of thinking about that.

  
“It’s you guys again,” Himari says excitedly, ruffling the platinum blonde’s hair. The poor girl shrieks, eyes going wide in horror before she jumps away from Himari and tries to fix her poor disheveled hair.

  
“Why the hell did you do that?” she screams, her watering eyes discretely observing the aloof Uchiha’s face. He doesn’t even spare her a glance or thought, his eyes are curiously (not that you can see that with the way he’s acting aloof) going over Harry.

  
“Eh…sorry about that.” Himari says, scratching her cheek in embarrassment.

  
“Can we please proceed to the tower?” Jinketsu asks in annoyance, addressing his team. “We’ve already spent enough time in this dreadful forest with its dreadful inhabitants.”

  
“I agree. We have what we need.” Harry says. “Sakura-san, Naruto-san, Sasuke-san, we’ll see you during the second leg of the chunin exams. You be safe now.”

  
“Wait!” Sakura almost screams, a red blush blooming on her cheeks when everyone looks at her. “What if he comes back for us?”

 

Harry frowns.

 

He honestly hadn’t thought of that. He’d just wanted to get away from the Nara brat whose presence was unnerving him. “You can tag along with us, but only if you promise not to slow us down.”

  
“Thank-“

  
“Hey, hey, pretty lady,” Naruto says, running up to Harry. “How the hell are you so strong?”

  
“How about she” Himari snickers, “tells you on the way? We’re all really interested about that.” Himari says, giving Harry a wink. Said boy sighs before jumping into the trees.  
He notices that the other Konoha team’s decided to stick with them as well.

 

Harry supposes there is strength in numbers, which is the only reason he’s not telling them to fuck off. There is absolutely no other reason why he’s letting them tag along.

“All of my strengths were inspired by something.” He says, leaping over trees. “I learned to master genjustu because I wanted to hide my home from everyone, even genjustu experts. There was a going tendency back at home, where villagers and some shinobi loved to trash my belongings, and since I wasn’t allowed to blow their brains out for vandalizing my property, I had to hide it from the general populace.”

  
“Why would they vandalize your things?” Sakura asks, scandalized.

  
“Because they don’t like me.” Harry says, simply, because that’s what it is. People don’t like him. “I learned medic ninjustu because once, I lost a whole team. If I’d known a little more I would’ve probably saved one or two of them (and that would’ve saved me a lot of trouble). I pushed myself to master various taijutsu katakana because I once saw Tsunade Senju punch a hole through someone’s head, I wanted to be just as strong is she is one day. Maybe I never will, but that’s why I have ninjustu on my side. A friend of mine,“ he says, thinking of Tsugaro’s father, “taught me a lot about the elemental ninjutsu. I recently started using Uchiwa to augment my fire style jutsu, to make it burn hotter-“

  
“Fu-san?” Sakura cuts him off. “About your fire style jutsu, how were you able to make it burn blue? I’ve never seen anyone do that.”

  
“It’s all thanks to this.” He says, showing them a seal that curls around the palm of his hand. It’s weird, Harry knows, more like a tattoo than a seal. It looks like a series of vines curling around each other on his hand.“I won’t tell you what it does. My seals are for me and me alone, but I can tell you that if you try to replicate any of them, and use them, you’ll probably die."

 

 

Harry isn’t really telling the truth.

 

 

  
The similarities between this world and the one before are astounding, almost as if whoever brought him here didn’t want him to fail much.

 

 

Fuinjutsu is very similar to runes.

 

 

Now, Harry hadn’t done Ancient Runes at Hogwarts, nor during his Aura training, but he’d met more than a fair share of criminals that hid behind the safety of wards, and it was tedious waiting around for Curse Breakers to help them get through those wards.

 

Harry had taught himself (he’d cried like a baby thousands of time because it was a hard branch of magic to master), which was dangerous and hard, but he’d become competent enough to break past many wards and curses easily. Fuinjutsu had the same concept as Rune making.

 

  
There were certain structures (structured concepts that you could think of yourself) that you had to construct with different pieces, sort of like a puzzle. Now the puzzle pieces made up the desired structure, but the puzzle pieces wouldn’t be the same colour because the colour would depend on what feature you’d want your structure to have.  
Paper bombs were a simple example. They were made with a number of simple puzzle pieces (Harry called them puzzle pieces to make it easier to understand). There was one that would react with chakra to cause a spark (let’s say its red), one that would react with spark to cause an explosion (this ones blue), one that would react with the explosion to cause light and heat (this one would be yellow), and one that would amplify all of that(and this one would be green). It wasn’t as simple as Harry laid it out.

  
If a person would just sit down and draw a seal, it could probably fill a whole room, even a seal as simple as a paper bomb.

 

 

A Fuinjutsu specialist or even just a beginner has to have the ability to simplify seals, compress them without making a mess of things whilst making it work at the same time.

Some specialists could actually make seals into something beautiful, something like art when they ink them onto their skin, just like Harry able to do with his seal.

  
On the topic of his seal, it was a pretty simple concept. It acted like alveoli, syphoning pure oxygen from the air and feeding into his fire style jutsu when he blows out.

 

He could only do it best with the fire ball jutsu though.

“Why’s that pretty lady-chan?” Blondie asks.  
Harry feels his left eye twitching. A wardrobe change is due.

  
“Because I said so.”

 

 

 

 

 

  
Harry almost wishes he could’ve fought the Suna Jinchuriki because the second round wouldn't be the blur that it was. It isn't even worth mentioning.

The only fight that was worth his attention is the one between Rock Lee and Gaara (and that's only because someone got hurt real bad). The fight between the Inuzuka boy and blondie was hilarious, whilst the one between the blind girl and blind girl's blind cousin was just sad( Harry is seriously considering learning all their name). Jinketsu and Himari had both forfeited their matches, the later before it even began.

Harry had gone up against some Ame-nin who's name he's already forgotten. The guy had repeatedly tried to place him under a genjutsu even though Harry repeatedly told him it wouldn't work.

Now his bleeding heart wants him to heal that bushy browed guy with a bowl cut, because he was hurt by a jinchuriki and Harry feels a bit responsible.

  
"I'm terribly bored." Harry groans out, stretching.

  
"You can't be serious." Himari says, dango stick hanging out of her mouth. "This place is amazing." She shrieks happily, startling the people next to her.

  
"I thought I'd find a challenge here. But the exams have been a breeze, Oroch-pedo-maru excluded. I mean, did you see that idiot I was fighting?" He says blinking slowly. "He wa—"

  
"Pretty Lady-chan!" An annoying voice screeches.

Harry turns around to see the blonde Uzumaki running towards him, a stupid smile on his whiskered face.

  
"Wow, that kid really looks dumb." Himari says, as if noticing it for the first time.

  
"I totally agree." Jinketsu says quietly. "I'm leaving." He further says, walking away without even throwing them a backward glance(why Harry observed this, he has no idea. Jinketsu is a jerk after all).

  
"Prett Lady-chan! Hey pretty —"

  
"Kid," Harry cuts him off, "I heard you the first time. And I'm not a lady, I'm a man."

The blonde stares up at him, looking skeptical. "Are you sure?"

  
Himari chuckles.

  
"I think I know my body better than anyone." Harry snaps.

  
"Why the hell do you dress like do you dress like—"

  
Himari's chuckles turn into loud cackles of mirth.

  
"Is there a particular reason you called out to me?" Harry asks, annoyed.

  
"Oh right," he smiles. "I wanted to you to teach me a jutsu."

  
"You want me to?" Harry asks, brow raised.  
"Please?"

  
"Kid, we're each other's competition." Harry deadpans. "I could sabotage your training, I could sell your techniques to your opponent, the blind guy."

  
"But you won't. You saved us from the snake guy when we were in the forest of death."

  
"Come on Fū, the kid obviously worships the ground you walk on," Himari whispers loudly in his ear, "teach him a jutsu."

  
Harry looks down at the blonde. Naruto's blue eyes are sparkling in wonder. "How about we do this? You find out from your sensei if you can learn something from me."

  
"Kaka-sensei won't mind."

  
"Well find out anyway. Your sensei may want to teach you something that will probably take a lot of time during the day—"

  
"Then we'll train at night!"

  
"Shut up!" Harry shouts. Dammit, the kid's annoying. "You have to make sure that our scheduals correspond, so that it doesn't happen that I'm free whilst you're training and vise versa."

  
Naruto hums, rubbing his chin. "That makes sense. I'll ask my sensei, don't worry." Then, he starts talking to himself. "This is so cool. I'm gonna learn two new jutsu and kick Sasuke-teme's butt!"

  
"I'm staying by the village inn, room 39. You should come by after talking to your sensei."

  
"I'll be there, believe it!" He shouts before sprinting away, leaving only a trail of dust behind.

"How you manage to drag all sorts of characters into your social circle, is really baffling."

  
Harry casts her a glance.

  
"I heard Kazami Uchiha spoke to you, often. That bastard hadn't spoken much to anyone outside of his family but the few council members he tolerated."

  
"He was a complicated geezer," Harry says, smiling a bit, "Can you believe that that asshole gave me his wife's battle fans, then left her Uchiwa for me to use before he died?"

  
At Harry's snort, Himari makes a curious noise. "Sounds to me like he was going to support your relationship with Tsugaro. Maybe he wanted you to he the Clan Head's wife."

 

"I'm not a woman you batty hag!"

 

Himari cackles. "Then stop wearing skirts. Seriously, the next guy that asks you out won't be able to handle the disappointment when he finds out you're a guy."

  
"Its not a dress but a kilt. I don't have any hips or breasts, which should be enough of an indicator that I'm a man." Harry growls out.

  
"Please," Himari drawls, draping her arm over his shoulders, "with that pretty face, boys won't bother looking further. They'll lap at you like hungry dogs."

  
"Argh!" Harry simultaneously growls and groans. "I'm going back to the inn. I'd rather suffer in silence with Jinketsu than listen to this shit!"

  
"Oh come on Fū—boo, I'm only kidding." Himari coos, garnering another growl/groan from Harry.

 

 

Inky black eyes narrow in contemplation as Sasuke turns away from the shrieking teammates.

They'd mentioned an Uchiha who wasn't Itachi, Kazami to be precise.

 

Sasuke once briefly read about the former Uchiha Clan member, who'd deserted the Clan a long time ago. To think he'd been alive all this, judging by the fact that those two clearly knew of him, makes Sasuke wonder how old he is. But they'd spoken of him in the past tense, so he was probably dead.

 

Sasuke, contrary to the popular belief, is very much interested in rebuilding his Clan (somehow, people knew he wanted revenge on Itachi), but not in the way all his fan girls assumed he was.

  
He's not interested in women or girls, never has been and probably never will, he's known that for a while now. Until someone finds a way for men to carry children, Sasuke will only work to find other Uchiha besides him and his brother. He knows (not for a fact unfortunately) that there is a possibility that there were other members of his Clan out there, he just has to find them.

 

'It seems like Naruto isn't the only one who'll be visiting the inn' he thinks, walking away from greedy and pitying stares of all the market inhabitants.

 

 

Unfortunately, he doesn't see the sickly yellow orbs that follow the length of his body lustfully.

 

 

 

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

There's something devastatingly beautiful about Konoha that can only be seen at a hilltop after a rain storm.

  


Harry loves the rain. He loved it back then too, when he was a teenager, pruning his aunt's rose bush, hands caked with dirt from cleany the house all day and tending to the garden, agony lining the small of his back in correspondence with the parted and inflamed flesh there courtesy of his loving uncle.

  


Rain brings relief.

  


Its always washed away his pain, washed away the dirt on what little of his body was exposed, washed away the sadness he was feeling. He'd always laughed when it rained, because everything was beautiful.

(It was eapecially beautiful after a raim storm for a Kaleidoscope of colours adorned whatever the water had touched, making even know the ugliest of things beautiful)

  


So why was Harry, during this particularly beautiful rainstorm, see the memory of the day his life fell apart.

  


  


_**The ringing in his ears persists, it doesn't go louder nor does it slowly fade. For the first time he takes in all in, the dry but expensive parchment on his, the smell of barely dry ink, the sharp light of the lanterns scattered all around the room stabbing his tired red rimmed eyes, the stiff leather bound chair he's seated on, the still portraits of various goblin lords and kings staring down at him from their perches on the wall.** _   
_**He feels all individual aches on his body, from the open gash on his chest and his bruised lungs to the little discoloration on the back of his hand.** _   
  
_**"Excuse me?" He croaks out.** _   
  
_**"This will is inconsistent." The goblin says, unsympathetically. "James Sirius cannot inherit the Potter Lorships, including Potter Wizengamot seats or any properties that belong to the family. He can only inherit your own possessions that are independent of the family name. The same applies for Albus Severus and Lilly Luna.** _   
  
_**They are not Potter's, therefore they cannot inherit anything that belongs to the Potter family."** _   
_**"How.." He starts. "How can this be rectified?"** _   
  
_**The goblin stares at him, sneer of disgust firmly curled on its lips, sharp yellow teeth gleaming in the candle light. "For a simple fee, no doubt with amount of money you have stored in your vaults," it spits out " multiple blood adoption rituals can be prepared at behest. Although, I must make emphasis on absolute discretion. This is considered a Dark ritual after all, no thanks to one Albus Dumbledore."** _   
  
_**"I'm well aware of that Bladnog." Harry says, lightly. "Don't forget who it is, exactly, you're speaking to."** _   
  
_**Well aware that if Harry fires him from his job as the Potter Family's account manager, he'd be shunned amongst the goblins, Bladnog seals his lips shut and let's the weakling of a wizard before him think.** _   
  
_**"I want you to prepare the rituals. On the will, change all that involves my wife until I find out why my children and I do not share the same blood, I want her to receive nothing that is mine."** _   
  
_**"It shall be done." Bladnog says, snapping his finger.** _   
  
  
_**Hours later, after reading an insane amount of paperwork and contracts and taking a detour to St. Mungos to get his injuries checked, Harry makes it back his home at Godric Hollows.** _   
_**For probably the millionth time, he curses Albus Dumbledore. "Good riddance." He snarls out as he walks into the house through the front door.** _   
  
_**"Papa!"** _   
  
_**Harry staggers a bit when Lilly latches onto his leg. "Hello there, little flower." He greets, picking her danty little body and perching her on his hip.** _   
  
_**"Hewo papa!" She shrieks, long fiery locks of hair flying. "Youwe wate again. We awmost stawted supper withouwt you papa."** _   
  
_**Everything about what goes on next is normal, except the fact that Harry stares at his son and daughter far longer than normal, so much so that Ginny notices as well.** _   
  
  
_**"How did you figure it out?" Ginny asks, hours later when they've laid the children to bed.** _   
_**Swallowing a finger of fire whiskey with a grimace, Harry starts to speak after. Eyes firmly planted on the warm glow of the fireplace. "Being an aura is a dangerous job. Every time I go out there, I risk my life and today...today was bad. Very bad.** _   
_**We busted an illegal magical creatures trafficking ring. There—" he trails off. "I wanted to make sure that if something happened to me the kids would be alright.** _   
  
_**Apparently none of them appeared on the family tree or ltapestry."** _   
  
_**"Harry I can explain—"** _   
  
_**"You'd better," he hisses out, livid.** _   
  
_**"Remember when we were trying for James?" She asks, sitting on the chair opposite his. "Remember how hard it was?"** _   
  
_**"Ginny." Harry says, pinching his brow. "What did you do?"** _   
  
_**"I went to check if I was the problem, but I wasn't. The obvious answer was you."** _   
  
_**"That was twelve years ago Ginny." He shouts, outraged. "Why am I hearing of this today?"** _   
  
_**"I knew how much you'd wanted a family of your own. I don't know Harry, but after the war you changed. You were just wading through life, it was almost like you'd lost your purpose or something." She says, desperately. "I wanted you to be happy and I knew that you'd just...you'd be ruined by this."** _   
_**"So what did you do? How did you...how Ginny?" He asks, clenching his fists.** _   
  
_**"I found someone that looked like you. It wasn't easy, but you being away so much helped. I...well, I—"** _   
  
_**"You slept with him? You've probably been sleeping with him all these years too, haven't you?" He asks.** _   
  
_**At her silence, the glass in his right hand fist breaks, fine pieces digging into the flesh of his palm. Harry doesn't mind it though, he's used to pain.** _   
  
_**"And how did you get them to look like me? How did you get them to look like my parents?"** _   
  
_**"Permanent transfiguration." She says, timidly. "And a few visits to...discrete potions masters."** _   
  
_**"You sick fucking whore." Harry stands, wishing to the gods that he could wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze the life out of her. "You have no shame...how could you do that? To children?"** _   
  
_**"I wanted you to be—"** _   
  
_**"Cut the crap Ginny!"** _   
  
_**"You'd changed Harry! So much so that I didn't know what would happen if you knew that we couldn't have children."** _   
  
_**"You thought I would've done away with you,  so you decoded you'd lie to me, you betrayed me! Ginny, how is it you didn't know I loved you more than anything on this world?"** _

  
_**"You changed—"** _   
  
_**"Gods, that's the lamest fucking excuse ever. Didn't it ever occur to you that I was trying to adjust to living without my life constantly being in danger? Or maybe that I was dealing with the guilt of having not being able to save everyone who'd died?"** _   
  
_**"You never talked to me!"** _   
  
_**"You never asked! You are my wife, were back then as well, yet you never once asked if I wanted to talk. You were busy spending my money, playing quidditch and fucking some bloke behind my back!" Harry screams back. "You know, Ron was never happy when I told him I wanted to marry you. In fact he's never been impressed with our relationship.** _   
_**I always thought it was because he was being overprotective, but most of his ire was directed at you more than me.** _   
  
_**Tell me, have you ever loved me Ginny?"** _   
  
_**"Of course I do!"** _   
  
_**"I don't mean The Boy Who Lived, I mean Harry Potter. Just Harry?"** _   
  
_**After a beat of silence, Ginny says. "You see what I mean? This...this —"** _   
  
_**"I'm not listening to this bullshit." Harry growls, walking out of the room.** _   
  
_**"No no, Harry. We're not done.... Let's talk!"** _   
  
_**"Leave me alone!"** _   
  
_**"Don't go!" He ignores her, picking his coat.** _   
**_"Don't you dare leave me!" She shrieks_ and there's white hot pain.**   


  


Harry gasps.

  


He gasps and gasps and tries to catch his breath, but he feels like his lungs can't seem to grab enough air. He feels like he's someone's reached into his chest and wrapped their hands around his lungs and squeezed hard.

This feeling persists for what feels like an eternity, when its only been a minute—then it completely vanishes.  
With the fogginess and panicked thoughts leaving his mind, he finally notices the person standing in front of him, finally notices the hand on his shoulder.  
"Nara?" He pants out.

 

 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's pretty much a new memory for Harry. Its why he kinda freaked out at the end, because there's a strong possibility that Ginny is the one that ended him.
> 
> Anyway, I know its short, but I'm still trying to figure out how to accimillate the Akatsuki into Orochimaru's invasion. Its not easy, especially because one S-ranked nin can cause a lot of damage (just like Pein) so just imagine six of them, plus Oro, his henchmen and Suna.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry thinks about important things for once and he gets another vision.

Harry shrugs the hand off his shoulder.

  
"Are you alright Fū-san?" The Yamanaka girl asks.

  
"I'm fine." He says, standing up. They're all soaking wet, Harry included.

  
"So those aren't tears in your eyes." The chubby boy says, (Kamitchi something?) hesitantly.

  
"That's just rain water."

  
"It stopped raining awhile ago." 

  
"Ok, that's enough Ino." An older man says, clad in standard Konoha jonin shinobi gear with a cigarette in his mouth. "I think we should head back on to the village. You guys need a change of clothes."

  


Ino sighs, obviously not happy that she can't find out why Harry was crying. "Fine. See you around Fū-san."

  


  


  
Harry doesn't bother watching them go, but quickly wipes the tears from his eyes when they get far away enough that he can barely sense them.

  
'What was that about?' Choumei asks.

  
"I had some sort of a flashback." Standing up, he tugs fruitlessly at the uncomfortably wet top and kilt (he seriously needs a wardrobe change). "I can't piece my memories together. I mean, this is pretty much all that I remember. Anything after that is just blank."

  
'Do you think maybe you were oblivited?'

  
"Obliviated." Harry corrects. "And no, I've seen obliviated memories before. Their metaphysical manifestation is a white blankness. My memory is just blank."

  
'There's no use dwelling on it. Seems to me like your memories will come back on their own.'

  
Harry hums in skepticism, but then again, this memory had appeared out of knowhere. He knows that the last thing he did was drink tea by the fire place whilst reading a letter from James about his most recent prank, but he doesn't recognize much about his surroundings. Maybe he'd divorced Ginny and moved away or something.   
Either way—"You're right. I should probably go back to the inn."

  
'That's the best idea you've come up with all day. I mean who trains in the rain?'

 

 

Harry's just a ways from the inn when he starts running, a large grin curling onto his lips.  
'What is it now?'

  
"Tsugaro's here!" He exclaims.

  
'I haven't sensed him...' Choumie comments.

  
"That's because he's hiding his presence. He probably just forgot to hide his scent." Harry chirps.

  
'Wait...you're telling me that all that training you did to improve your sense of smell was for this?'

  
"Its nice one uping him once in a while. Tsugar's one impressive son of a bitch, it grates on my nerves when I can't beat him at something!"

  
'Didn't know you had a competitive streak.' Choumei comments.

  
Harry's about to answer, but the oddest sensation fills his body, then everything goes dark.

  


— _ **There's the worst feeling of gravity violently pulling at his naval. He can't move an inch, hard rocks stick to the skin of his bones, making it hard to breath and even harder to think. Its agony, the feeling of slowly suffocating, slowly loosing himself to the sweet call of death, which is always near, but never close enough**_ —

  
'Fū?' Choumei calls, 'Are you alright?'

  
"I'm fine." He breaths out shakily, slowly—very rattled. 

  
'Where did you go? Its almost as if you weren't all here.' 

  
"I'd be lying if I said I knew." Harry says, voice still shaky. "Anyway, I still need to see Tsugaro.

He quickly slips into the same pace he was running before the weird vision. Something is up with his mind and Harry has no idea what's triggered it. He's never been to Konoha, they're only a few things here similar to those in Taki and the rest of the things around this village he's never seen before. He doesn't even get any sense of déjà vu when he looks at these new things, so he can rule out a few conditions.

Dissociative amnesia.

It's a possibility. Harry has blanks in his memory that were never concerning until he sat down and actually thought of them. If he has dissociative amnesia, then he suffered trauma, one so great he decided to forget about.  
But its very concerning that he'd forget so many things. Harry remembers what he last did, but was it really what he last did? Was it his last peaceful memory? Was it the day that he was killed? Was the trauma of his murder so horrific that the only way he could protect himself from it was to forget?

  
The vision he's just witnessed... Is that how he died? Slowly suffocating after being buried under a pile of rocks. And how did he even get to that point? What was he doing? Was he on a mission?

  
And how come he woke up in a four year old's body? Why not an infant?

  


Why the hell was here?!

  


For the first time in almost a decade, Harry seriously wonders why he's here.

  


"Hey." Tsugaro greets, poking his forehead.

  
Harry looks up, his train of thought turning to wisps of smoke. "Tsugaro, what are you doing here?" He asks, not unkindly.

  
"My escort mission finished earlier then I expected. I decided to take a detour here, especially because I was in Suna."

  
"Don't you need to file a report?" He scolds. "Shibuki won't be the least bit impressed."

  
"Already taken care of. I sent a messenger bird with it."

  
"Those are really unreliable." Harry says, dryly. 

  
"The thoughts what counts." He shrugs. "Anyway, I just met your team. No one told me you were leaving Taki with an impressive set of kekkie genkai users."

  
"That's because you were already out of the village when it was decided. Speaking off, how long are you staying?"

  
"Oh wow. I haven't been here longer than an hour and you're already trying to get rid of me."

  
Harry snorts, shoving Tsugaro out of his way. "You know I didn't mean it like that. The final round of the chunin exam's in three weeks and I want you to be there cheering me on." He opens the door to his room, fortunately Himari isn't waiting for him on his bed like she usually does. He's oddly drained.

  
"You know I wouldn't miss it for the world. I managed to make my leave from duty coincide with your chunin exams. Believe me, Shibuki saw right through me and he wasn't impressed at all."

  
"Nothing manages to impress him these days." Harry mutters. "But that's great. You can see me finally become a chunin after I kick some genin ass."

  
"Don't underestimate those genin, they might actually outsmart you."

  
"I won't give them the chance to." Harry says, smirking.  
With a raised brow, Tsugaro decides to drop the subject. 

"Speaking of ass." He says, laying his palms on Harry's butt.

  
Said boy slaps them away, turning around with a raised brow. "Should've known that's all you're really interested in."

  
With a chuckle, Tsugaro says. "That's so not true. I actually couldn't stop thinking about kissing you."

With a chuckle of his own Harry turns around. "Is that so?"

  
"Yeah." Stepping close, he wraps his arms around tgs shorter males waist. Then quietly, he says. "Hey you."

  
"Hi."

  
Just before their lips intertwine, a loud knock sounds at the door. "Pretty Lady-chan...I mean pretty man-chan...no wait, that's kinda insulting...um...hello?"

  
Tsugaro's shoulders are quacking, small gasps of laughter leaving his tightly clenched lips. "Shut up." Harry growls.

  
Walking up to the door, Harry wrenches it open, stopping Naruto at mid knock. "The name's Fū kid. And next time, don't knock at my door like that. I'll maim you."

  
"Pretty Lady-chan!" Naruto exclaims, his excitement having made him ignore what Fū was telling him. From behind said pretty lady-chan, Tsugaro keels over in laugher, loud cackles filling the whole room. "Kakashi-sensei left me with that closet pervert, Ebisu-sensei and I guess he was okay because he tried to teach me how to walk on water, but then he was taken out by this super weird pervert, Jeriya...Jaraya or something, I just call him Ero Sennin. He said he was going teach me a super cool jutsu tomorrow, I just came to find out if it'd be alright with you if we trained tomorrow after I finish up with him."

"Okay." Harry agrees, slowly. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then."

 

  
Tsugaro mostly stays out of his way, prefaring to explore the village than watch him. Harry prefers this as well, Tsugaro can ve very distracting after all.

His training with Naruto is actually pleasant. The kids obviously dense when simplicity is involved, but he can grasp the harder things faster than anyone Harry knows (Tsugaro included). Harry first has him discovering his chakra nature, which actually turns out to be wind (very convenient for Harry) then he gets down to teaching the kid a B ranked wind style jutsu.

The results are incredible.

"Look at what I did Pretty Lady-sensei! I blew a hole in the tree."

  
"That you did." Harry says, after a whistle, mildly impressed. There's a head sized hole on the tree. "That's some pretty impressive chakra reserves you got there."  
The blonde grins, white teeth gleaming. "Thanks sensei!"

  
"Hey!" Jiraya whines. "How come you never call me sensei but you call the squirt that?"

  
Harry does not like Jiraya of the Sannin. He's a perverted old creeper who doesn't respect Harry even though he knows he's a fellow Sage.

  
"That's cause Pretty Lady-chan isn't a perverted bastard!" Naruto says, sticking his tongue out at the geezer.

  
"I hope you get the chance to use that jutsu. I think your opponent will be very surprised when you hit him with that."

  
"Why's that sensei?"

  
"Well, the Fire country has an abundence of Fire and Lightening style users. There's a very small number of Wind style users, so you're kinda unique around these parts."

  
"Really?" The boys exclaims, curlean eyes twinkling in glee.

  
"Really." Harry says, smiling. "I guess my job is done then Naruto. You can summon toads thanks to Jiraya-san and you can use a B-ranked jutsu. I think you're good for the final round of the chunin exams."

  
"Can't wait to beat Sasuke-bastard! He's definitely going to agree to teach me that cool taijutsu kata after this. Bye sensei! Bye Pervy Sage!"

  
Harry waves, getting ready to leave as well.

  


  
"Taki's jinchuriki, huh?" 

  
Said boy turns around to face the white haired man. "Got a problem with that?"

  
"A word of advice." Jiraya says chillingly. "Be careful about how you speak to someone like me, especially in their own territory."

  
After a minute of silence, where they stare each otgerbin the eye without wavering, Harry starts to to walk away.

  
"What're you doing here?" Jiraya asks. "You're talented, probably more then you let on, but you're here trying to become a chunin."

  
"Not that its any of your business, but Jinchuriki aren't that much appreciated in Taki either. It makes living hard. Makes getting stronger even harder."

  
"Sounds counter-productive." Jiraya comments.

  
"I know that more than anyone. But people do unacceptable and stupid things when they're angry, hurt, sad or scared."

  
"What do you want with Naruto?"

  
Harry looks at him, closely, before snorting and walking away. "He's an annoying brat that asked me to help him learn something. I had a feeling he wouldn't take no for an answer."

 

 

"My opponent's dead?"

  
"Yes." The chunin says. "We found his remains two weeks ago."

  
"Am I a suspect?" He asks, cautiously.

  
"No. The matter was cleared some time ago, it was just a big misunderstanding."

  
"Oh, well. Thank you then."

  


"What was that all about?" Tsugaro asks, scratching his defined 'abdomen' (insert<fan-girl squill>).

  


  
"Um..," he hums, closing his mouth. "They just told me my opponent was murdered."

  
"Is that so?"

  
"Yeah." Harry groans, sitting back down on his bed. Why did they tell him just a few hours before the exam started? It hardly seems fair. "To think, I trained so hard to be able to track movements through chakra sensory, because I'd have to coat my ears with chakra to prevent his sound waves from disrupting my perception and that would leave me deaf and unable to track him through sound, which I depend on the most."

  
"Either way, I think you're going to win and they'll make you a chunin."

  
"You're only saying that cause you love me."

  
"Yeah, I am. That's what I'm here for...amongst other things." He says, dropping a kiss on Harry's forehead. "But I'm also saying that cause I know your skills. If there's anyone that deserves to be a chunin, it's you."

  


  


Harry sighs loudly, flopping back onto his bed. Something bad is definitely going to happen today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this part of the story because this is where its about to diverge, it will no longer closely resemble canon. And the ending will blow your minda to bits.... It did that to me...took me a whole week to recover.
> 
> For you Tsugaro Harry lovers....sorry but shit will go down for them soon. They will break up.
> 
> There will be sasunaru in like ten or eleven chapters...like hardcore... I wanna focus on developing a relationship between Harry and Shikamaru soon...
> 
> Hope u enjoyed this....please level comments, I really appreciate them


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Akatsuki are here

Harry was very right when he said something bad would happen (in fact, he's always right when predicting misfortune).

The final part of the exam starts out fantastically. The Uchiha kid is late, and is supposed to be disqualified by default. But then most of the foreigners came here to see what Konoha has done with it's last Uchiha, so his match with the Suna Jinchuriki, Gaara, is postponed. Watching from the competitor's stand, Harry claps his hands along with everyone when blind girl's cousin and Naruto-san step onto the arena. 

The fight is not very long, but it leaves the audience very satisfied. 

Naruto, somehow, has managed to master the art of brawling. Harry can see that most of his motions are exaggerated and energy wasting, but luckily he has his monstrous stamina to fall back on.

He uses his shadow clones a lot, mostly keeping his distance from the blind guy (Harry knows he's a Hyūga, but the guy seriously looks blind). Its not till some time later that Harry realises Naruto's strategy. 

 

Gouging his enemies weak points.

 

Its not really that extraordinary, but the execution of his plan is simply impressive (the Hyūga kid probably goes through the whole match without knowing what Naruto is up to).

The Hyūga kid has superior visual prowess (that much is obvious), coupled with his gentle fist and that incredible dome of chakra he can weave in the air and you have a shinobi with incredible offense and defense. But Naruto is smart (sometimes...some very few and rare times) and he finds what he's looking for in no time.  
Whenever the Hyūga kid uses his protection dome thing, there's a short span of five seconds where he's disoriented. 

 

Although it looks like he's mastered it, there is no way for him to escape the disorientation that comes with spinning that fast in that small period of time. That kind of stuff comes with the experience of using the technique for years, at least from what Harry can tell.  
Sending wave after wave of an overwhelming number of clones, he forces the blind boy to use his defence dome thing, after causing him to strain his eyes by attacking from his blind spot (which Naruto had already discovered) and almost depleting him of his reserves by forcing him to use his dome protection justu again and again, then he delivers a devastating uppercut to the guy's jaw (having dug his way through the ground).

 

Blind kid does not wake up from the punch.

 

Th following matches are interesting as well, especially the one between Temari, Gaara's sister, and the Nara kid. The two are smart, but the Nara more so. Incredibly so. His strategy is genius, but he ends up forfeiting his match (which was a good call as well, he wouldn't have won going up against her insane wind style jutsu). Its pretty obvious who and who are going to become chunin. 

 

The Uchiha kid's match barely start before things go to hell.

 

'A genjustu.' Choumei warns.

With occlumency (its very handy in this world) and Choumei on his side, they (genjutsu) don't affect him. It's just important that he know when he's being attacked. 

 

'From where?' He sends the thought back.

 

There's a flare of chakra from the kage box followed by an explosion of fire. Another flare and two figures leap out of the burning box facing off each other with a deadly gaze.

 

'How did I not notice Orochimaru was there?'

 

'You would not have found him unless he wanted to. He undoubtedly has experience hiding his presence. ' Choumei says. 'Do not interfere. You are not yet in their league.'

'Right.' He nods.

Some people are able to shake off the genjutsu, a majority jonin and chunin, whilst the minority being genin.

"What the hell's going on?" Harry asks the closest shinobi to him.

"Suna and Oto have launched an attack on the Hidden Leaf. You're a genin, right?" He asks. At Harry's nod, he adds. "I suggest you leave the village, until this dies down."

"Maybe I can help." He offers

"You're more than likely to be mistaken as an enemy. Get out of here!"

"Got it." Harry nods, feeling guilt curl tightly around his gut when he leaves the arena. He makes it to the inn, the rendezvous point his team and Tsugaro had agreed on meeting at in case something went wrong (Harry had suspected, there was something fishy about an S-ranked missing-nin like Orochimaru being here).

 

Luckily their things are stored inside a storage seal, so he finds them waiting outside the entrance, unbelievable tense. With a slight nod, they all leap towards the gate.  
"I can't believe this." Harry says, midly disappointed with outcome of his attempt at becoming a chunin. Now he'd have to wait another six months and Shibuki probably wouldn't be able to get permission to let him leave Taki. "Fucking Orochimaru!"

"It's ok." Himari says, placatingly. "I'm sure we'll figure out something when we get back home."

"Himari's right." Ichigo adds, silently. "You're competent enough to make jonin, I'm sure if I put word in, something can be arranged."

Before Harry can say anything, they come upon the oddest sight. "Who're they?" He asks slowly.

 

Walking slowly into the village is a group of figures in black cloaks with red clouds etched over the length of their fabric, nude coloured hats perched over their heads, an impossibly hostile aura hung ominously over thier persons.

 

"Nobody good." Ichigo says, calling them to a halt. 

"Maybe we should let them pass."

"I don't think it'll be that simple." Tsugaro says, going very very tense. "I've heard of them from my father. They're a group of mercenaries, S-ranked missing-nin called the Akatsuki."

"A group of S-ranked missing-nin can never result to anything good." Himari says. "Maybe we should—"

"Fuck, this cloak is hot. I'm taking this shit off." Taking off his hat and revealing his purple eyes, purplish hair and very pale skin (probably an albino) before he rips his cloak off and ties the sleeves around his waiste. "That's better. Why is the Fire Country so fucking hot, eh Uchiha?"

"I do not know." Another figure answers, sounding bored and frigid.

"Well fuck this shit, I can't wait to find the damn Nanabi Jinchuriki! Where the fuck could he be in this huge fucking village?!"

"He's close. Right around the corner close."

Harry meets Tsugaro's panicked gaze. "They're looking for me." He whispers frantically.

"We need to make a run for it, hope that we loose them in the dense forest. Otherwise we're done for. We can't go up against them." Ichigo whispers to them. "At my count, we'll —"

"What? Make a run for it?" 

They startle so much that their mad dash to leap away has them slamming into each other, but luckily Ichigo's first reaction is to throw a kunai at the man who silently slide behind them without being discovered, as if he wasn't there a moment. The craziest thing happens.

The kunai passes through him.

It passes through him as if he isn't even there. 

"That wasn't very nice. Tobi's hurt." The masked man (Harry finally observes) says, sounding genuinely hurt, childish and not in anyway serious like the situation calls for.

This one scares Harry. 

Much more than anything has ever scared him in this world. He has a playful air around him, but he wouldn't be amongst S-ranked criminals if he wasn't dangerous, so he must have complete confidence in his strength and not the kind that comes from being cocky. This man in front of him is very strong. And equally dangerous.

Harry does not want to take any chances, not with Tsugaro here, so he does something he's never done before, something dangerous. 

He let's go.

The thing is, Harry has an endless supply of magic in the form of nature energy. He has the option of using his own magic from his core or siphoning it out from his surroundings. The reason Harry hasn't done the later is because when he tries to do anything remotely complicated with his chakra, Choumie's chakra rises to the surface. And he doesn't know what will happen if his chakra, his magic, Choumei's chakra and the nature energy mix. 

 

The last time he left hundreds of people with second degree burns.

He could die.

He could loose control and hurt the wrong person.

Which is why he tells them to run. "They're here for me. You don't need to stay behind, you'll get hurt. I will take care of this."

"No you won't. Not without us!" Himari exclaimes.

They observe as four of the group of six missing-nin disperse from the group, heading further into the village. Three are left behind, including the masked man'(who seems like he'll only be observing).

"Himari's right. I'm not leaving either." Tsugaro adds from his side. 

"You don't understand—"

"Irrelevant." Ichigo says, cutting him off. "We are a team and we do not leave a member of this team behind."

"Are you done being sappy pussies? Cause I wanna sacrifice you heathens to Jashi-sama." The crazy looking albino guy says.

"We can't kill the Nanabi, remember?" The other one says, taking off his cloak and hat.

"Kakuzu-sama!" Himari gasps. "You're still alive?"

Unbelievablely, the group of four becomes even more tense. There had been rumours here and there, but to think this man who is supposed to be well in his hundreds is still alive and kicking, emanating such hostile aura.

"Why the hell are you after the Fū?"

"That's none of your fucking business little girl. Go home and play with your dolls." Albino guy mocks.

"Hidan." Kakuzu says. "I don't want to stay any longer than necessary. Let's be done with this already."  
Hunching over in what looks like pain (or ecstasy), Kakuzu expels a two black masses of...something from his back, masks acting as pseudo faces for their monstrous hulking forms (one blue and the other red).

Harry doesn't give them a chance to attack, just let's the familiar pull in his naval take, before he's appearing on the other side of Konoha's wall with a sharp crack.

Left behind are two clones that will take his teammates to a safe place, away from those monsters. Harry is going to try to stabilize the mass of energy building with him. 

So he sits down in a meditative stance, keeping his senses wide alert whilst trying to keep his chakra at bay. The trees and grass around him wilt before his very eyes, and Harry's a little shocked by the amount of energy he can absorb.

A flare of chakra— "Kaze Bushin!" He chants, flying onto his feet.

Harry then runs through the hand signs for the strongest (he doesnt even try this one on serious battles. This is life or death)wind style jutsu he knows.

 

"Wind Style : Violent Wind Palm!"

 

The resulting explosion of wind is...monstrous. Countering wind with wind is not always a good idea (note to self) Harry thinks as his jutsu and Kakuzu's collide, forming a massive twister of chakra infused wind.

The trees do not survive and neither does a small section of Konoha's massive wall. When Kakuzu's chakra spikes again, Harry simply apparates as far away as his eye can see.. then...

 

Then he watches from a distance as the wind quickly morphs into a blazing inferno.  
"Gods." He mutters under his breath. "Choumei what do I do?"

 

'Use my chakra cloak.' He says. 'Its more than likely to protect you. Find out his weakness and exploit it.'

A rush of memories entering his brain have him gasping, eyes going to where he'd left his teammates. "Jinketsu's dead."

 

With another sharp crack he appears a distance from his team, taking only a second to breath before joining the fight. The crazy albino, Hidan they'd called him, has a scythe he's swinging around like a toy. 

Ichigo is trying his hardest not to get cut but deal as much damage to the enemy as he can, but it seems like Hidan doesn't care about injuries (there's a gaping hole in his chest where he'd stabbed himself after getting ahold of Jinketsu's blood).

"I left Kakuzu behind with a clone." He tells Himari, crouching next to Jinketsu's body. "I shouldn't have left your side." 

He let's healing chakra go over the wound. There's no doubt about it. Jinketsu is dead. 

"Its not your fault." Himari says, eyes brimming with unshed tears. "Its their's." Her eyes harden when they land on Hidan's form, anger and hatred rising onto their tearful surface.

"We need to get out of here." Tsugaro suggests.

"And what? Lead them back to the village?" Himari growls out. "Not happening."

"You guys need to leave this all to me." Harry says. "This is clearly happening because they want me."

"That's not happening either." Himari repeats. "We're all sticking tog—"

There's a loud blood curling roar somewhere north before something akin to a demon made of sand (stuff of the nightmares) emerges from the ground, stomping at something the Taki shinobi can't see.

'Gaara.' Harry thinks.

'No, thats definitely Shikaku.' Choumie says.

Taking a deep breath, Harry reaches within himself and grabs ahold of the mess of energy that finally stabilized. Its like taking adrenaline. His senses are heightened and he feels lighter and stronger. With a burst of speed he intercepts Hidan's scythe strike meant for Ichigo with his kunai, a loud clang resounding across the decimated street. With his left hand he tilts the blade away, burying the kunai into Hidan's forehead and leaping away. Luckily he only stops a bare second before leaping again, Hidan hot on his trail, kunai buried in his forehead already forgotten.

He meets another strike with a clang from his kunai, having taking another out from his pouch, coming to a stop some metres from the albino, before dashing back at him again.

He throws a punch, sliding under a wide swipe, coming around with a roundhouse kick which Hidan easily jumps over. Planting his hands on the ground he kicks out, catching the man's jaw, then quickly turns, following him before he can recover with a chakra infused punch. It catches him on the nose, which breaks with a satisfying crunch under Harry's fist—

 

A flare of chakra followed by a horrible gust of wind—

 

With a loud crack Harry apparates twice, grabbing ahold of Ichigo who was close by recovering, leaving the wind style jutsu ravishing a whole block of buildings, Hidan caught somewhere in there.

Coming to a distance away, he quickly leaps up, Ichigo going the other way, having being targeted by one of Kakuzu's masked monsters (the one with a red mask). Its shots a ball of fire up at him, which he avoids by quickly summoning a clone and having it throw him to the right, then lands with a grunt, weaving through the handsigns for a wind bullet jutsu, firing off at the creature, which dodges expertly despite it's size.

He leaps away after that, coming to stop next to Ichigo who's having the same problem as him. "How the hell are we supposed to beat these things?"

"Tsugaro's already figured it out." Said boy is going neck on neck with Kakuzu, Himari providing support. They're doing well against him, all things considered. "We have to kill Kakuzu-sama."

 

"Hey Kakuzu." Hidan says, coming out from underneath debris. "I'm done playing around. Let's kill them already."  
"Affirmative." 

The two leap towards each other, Hidan coming to a stop a distance in front of Kakuzu.

"You fuckers are gonna get it now." Hidan promises, a sinister laugh leaving his lips.

"Wind Style: Great Infinite Sandblast Breakthrough!" Kakuzu says, hands barely visible as they weave through handsigns.

He blows the wind right into Hidan...who comes at them at a speed Harry eyes can't keep up with. 

 

Tsugaro gets cut.

 

Fuck.

 

No.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Tsugaro got cut. I wonder what's gonna happen to him. *gasp*
> 
> Lol, thanks for reading again guys. I live them comments so please leave some behind for me, and if you're a guest or new to the story please leave some kudos...that would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Next chapter we focus on Gaara and Naruto  
> They're being persuid by Itachi, Kisame, Sasori and Deidara. *screams cause he's scared*
> 
>  
> 
> Jinketsu is dead. Such a shame.  
> There will be a funeral. He will be remembered. The end. Sorry if you loved him.
> 
>  
> 
> Moving on, why is Tobi here? To observe I hope... Nah, he's gonna step in if stuff goes awary.
> 
> If you still haven't realised this, well, the Akatsuki has just officially made itself a threat. They have to get all these Jinchuriki cause it will be hard getting them after this if they fail. The world would have made measure to keep the jinchuriki safe.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go very very badly.

"Petrificus totilum!" He chants, watching as ropes wrap themselves tightly around Hidan's body, raised arm and all. 

"Wingardium leviosa."

  
The levitation spell tears the two apart (Hidan and his scythe) and with barely a second thought, Harry banishes the scythe with a simple wordless spell. With a tight grip on the magic surrounding Hidan, he throws the albino as high and far as his magic can reach then turns his attention to Kakuzu. 

"Bombarda!"

The ground raptures, the spell having been overpowered, and Kakuzu barely escapes unscathed. Harry follows him, fist raised, chakra enhanced 

—He meets hard skin before he's swept away by a bolt of lightning. It lights his up nerves, making him feel as if he's burning from the inside out—

He lands on his feet with a grunt of pain, muscles occasionally spasming from residue lightning running through his body. There's another hulking mass of black, a white yellow mask on its face.

  
"I think I've finally figured out what's up with these things." Ichigo says, landing next to him. "They each represent an element, the blue wind—"

  
"I get that too." Harry cuts him off. "I think we're supposed to kill them instead. Kakuzu is easily parting from these things, the only time he seems to join the fight is if one them is in danger."

  
"Have you found their weak spot?"

  
"The mask." Tsugaro says, landing on Harry's left, Himari right behind him. "They get disoriented when you hit them there. I think we're supposed to destroy the masks."

  
"Himari, your secondary chakra element is lightening, right?" Ichigo questions.

  
"Yeah."

  
"I need you and Fū to go straight for Kakuzu. Make sure you stab him right in the heart with a lightning infused kunai, got it?"

  
"Wait," Harry says, turning to face their leadie, "you're not going to be able to defeat those things alone. You saw what kind of damage they can do."

  
"Have faith in us, Fū." Tsugaro says, solemnly.

 

 

 

 

  
Gaara breaths heavily from within the protection of his sand. On his sagging shoulder is a needle, definitely coated with lethal poison judging by how he's suddenly loosing all his strength. To think, that something slipped through his perfect defense, both the wall of sand that always protects him and the layer of sand he wears as second skin.

In his head, mother screams for their blood, begging Gaara to let her free (Gaara yearns for their blood himself, wants to feel it run down his face as he crushes them in his sand, where their blood will no doubt seep into, and watch as red rains over him. But he's so weak, he can barely move. Either way he's going to pass out soon and mother will come out and she will kill them all).

With a little cold smirk, he closes his eyes, surrendering to the strong pull of sleep.  
'Do you worst mother.' He thinks, and everything goes dark.

  
Shukaku comes to with a mad cackle, rejoicing at the feel of fresh, real air filling his pseudo lungs. His infintely black eyes with sickly yellow cross-like pupils quickly zoom onto the humans that easily defeated the pathetic thing that's supposed to be his jailor.

  
"I'm going to kill you!" He sing songs, dragging eight parts positive black energy and two parts negative white energy, and sage has it been a while since he could do this, then when the large mass of purple energy before him stabilizes, he drops it.  


  


  


—the ground tears, shatters and everything within a one mile radius is obliterated—

  


  


All they can hear is Shukaku's deranged cackles.

 

 

 

"Where the hell are you taking me?" Naruto screams in fury, strapped on the back of Konoha's craziest konoichi.

  
"Eh," Anko contemplates, leaping over multiple branches at a time. "This is a kidnapping situation, yeah, we're definitely kidnapping you."

  
"Anko." Yugao warns, long purple locks obstructing her view of her partner for a second there, before she promptly ties into a bun in a matter of seconds. "Uzumaki-kun, this is not a kidnapping situation. Anko is only joking."

  
"Hey, don't ruin my fun." Anko says, almost pouting. "I should be back at the village kicking Orochimaru's ass, along with his sidekicks and all those Suna rat traitors!" 

  
"What's going on?" Naruto asks again, struggling.

  
"Uzumaki-kun, forgive us for our most abrupt...abduction —"

  
"Told you we were kidnapping the brat!" Anko snort out.

  
"We received Intel from a trusted spy that a group of mercenaries would be infiltrating the village during Suna and Oto's invasion—"

  
"Wait a minute! Did you juat say the village has been invaded? Why the hell am I here? I should be back there fighting!"

  
"Brat." Anko growls. "Those mercenaries are after you, more specifically jinchuriki. You can't exactly protect yourself from them, they're S-ranked."

  
"What about my friends?"

  
"You'll have to trust that they can—"

A loud explosion has them coming to a halt, the ground beneath them shaking so hard some trees end up loosing their leaves.

  


"That came from the village." Yugao says.

  


"We have to go back!" Naruto screams, struggling again.

  
"No, we can't. Going against the Hokage's orders is treason, and punishable by death." Anko says. "I love being alive."

  


  


  
'Kakashi-sensei, Sakura-chan!' Naruto thinks. And with his heart thrumming painfully in his chest, he thinks—'Sasuke.'

 

  


  


 

Harry isn't familiar with Earth Style, hasn't bothered to read up much on it because it's not in his area of expertise (Harry can't even summon a small wall of earth) but he knows the Earth Grudge Jutsu, knows that its a jutsu that hails from Takigakure herself.

They won't be able to get through Kakuzu's hardened skin. Somehow he can sense where Harry will appear after he apparates away (and Harry for the life of him cannot understand how that's possible) so its impossible to catch him off guard.

  
'You're still not using my chakra to it's full expanse.' Choumei says. 'You need to use more of my power Harry.'

  


'I can't risk it.' He sends back.

  
'Yes you can. Otherwise your friends will die.'

He grits his teeth, determination taking hold of his heart, before he digs deep, digs into the seal etched on his back and drags out Choumei's freely given chakra.

—His skin burns again and again, but it heals just as fast so he doesn't really feel the pain, the process going on and on as a cloak of chakra engulfs his body. Drops of blood rise from his wounds when the chakra flow increases, changing the sickly orange tailed beast chakra into blood red—

He attacks, nothing but a blur, thinking of only seeking and destroying the enemy, a monstrous growl erupting from his mouth.

  


  


  


Then everything goes black.

 

 

  
"One tail." Obito says, grabbing the Tanaku's attention. He meets its inky black stare with his blood red gaze, then sinks into its conscious, grabs ahold of its will and bends it to his own. Then shackles its consciousness away, while keeping the manifestation of his will in control. "Stop."

The power of the Sharingan is truly astounding, and till this day it never ceases to amaze him. But it isn't what important.

Soon project Tsuki no me will take and this world will no longer have hatred and wars and deaths. There will be love and peace, and finally, finally...Obito will see Rin.

  
"Eh, Tobi?" Deidara calls. "Is that you?"

  
"Of course it's him you insolent brat." The puppeteer says, condescendingly.

  
"Sasori, ma man. That was not nice."

  
"Quiet, both of you." Obito says, dropping the guise of being a an overgrown child. "Go help tge others."

  
"Who're you to tell us what—"

  
"Deidara, stop." Sasori warns, giving Obito a warry glance. Smart move. "Let's go."

  
Soon, this sad existence will be over.

 

 

"Your pursuit for the truth will not end well." A voice whispers, sounding like a thousand dying breaths.

  
Harry opens his eyes, but he might as well not have, because he can't see a thing. 

"Death."

  
"Do not let them seal away the Tailed Beasts, it will not end well for anyone. Especially you."

  
"What does that have to do with me being here?"

  
"I'm not allowed to say."

  
"By whom."

  
"I'm not allowed to say."

  
"Godsdamnit!"

  
"Wake up."

  
"Not until I get answers!"

  
"Wake up."

  
—He can't even gasp, the pain is...unlike anything he's felt before. He feels like he's being eaten alive and yet he can see that he's not. No, he's suspended a couple hundred feet above the ground and they're feeding his chakra to something... Something Harry can't bring himself to look at.

  


Its wrong. This is all wrong —

  


He slips into his mind and the first thing he sees is the forest surrounding Choumei on fire.

  


  
"What happened?!" He calls out above the pain and the ringing in his ear along with the crackling fire and falling branches.

  
"They're sealing me away!"

  
"But how? I thought I was fighting Kakuzu!"

  
"We were taken down with a genjutsu! We had no chance against the Sharingan!"

  
"So what do we do?!"

  
"Nothing." Choumei says, fate already accepted.

  
"No, we can't give up! We can't!"

  
"Its over Harry."

  
"No it isn't. It fucking isn't. I'm getting us out of here, I promise you!"

" **Do not let them seal away the Tailed Beasts**."

"I'm getting us out."

  
Harry raises his hand in Choumei's direction, magic rising to the palm of his hand. "I will find you."

  
"What are you doing?!"

  
Harry doesn't answer, just let's the gathered magic do its job.

 

He banishes Choumei into Wizard's Space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to explain Wizard's Space before anyone gets confused.   
> Its basically where all things go when they're banished.   
> But, its also where things come from when they're summoned.   
> Like for example, Sepermsortia..I think (don't remember the exact name) is a spell for summoning snakes. Draco uses it against his duel with Harry I'm second year, where everyone finds out he's a parseltongue. 
> 
> The snake comes from this wizard space. I don't know how it works, but I think it has two sections, and two sections within those two sections. 
> 
> The first primary section has animate things, like the snake and secondary section has inanimate things, like quils or cups etc.
> 
> Then within the primary section, there's a section for things coming in and a section for things going out. Same applies for tge secondary section.
> 
> This is my explanation of the Wizards Space. Hope you understand.
> 
>  
> 
> Now Harry's well, he might as well be dead, but if he survives having his chakra sucked dry by the Gedo Statue *wink* then, he'll have to create a spell to summon Choumei, because Choumei is his own thing. 
> 
> Its really gonna be hard because magic works really well with Latin, and Harry doesn't know Latin. (-_-)
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I'd really like to hear your thoughts, like for real. What are you thinking? Tell me all the juicey details!!!
> 
>  
> 
> Love you guys and thanks for reading, its much appreciated, ne.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death.

The first thing he feels when he wakes up is emptiness, and big black ball of emptiness inside of him yearning to be filled.

His whole body aches, and that's no surprise with the amount of burns that litter the length of his skin, thanks to the corrosiveness of Choumei's chakra.

 

Choumei.

 

Harry doesn't even know what he's going to do about his friend. Many things get banished into wizards space, luckily its been proven that they can be summoned back. The thing is, no one back at home knew how long something stayed in there before it was lost. Especially, something animate, something that had a personality like Choumei. Harry doesn't know Latin, never much bothered with spell crafting. 

So he's in a bit of a bind.

Gingerly, he picks himself up wincing now and then in pain. Besides the burns and the aching emptiness where his chakra is supposed to be, Harry feels beaten down. He doesn't know what happened to his team or Tsugaro, can't even remember a single thing that happened after he went four tails on Kakuzu.

He observes the surroundings, which he can't clearly make out but he's pretty sure he's inside a cave. 

He sits back down after that, not finding any definable way to get out. He's only alive beause of magic and only because it acts as pseudo chakra, running through his body and keeping him alive. Its wrong though, the way things are working in his body, he can't move around much in his state.

Luckily, those S-ranked criminals did not bother removing his weapons pouch which has a scroll of medical supplies. He smears his bloody hand across the scroll, making it release its contents.

There's basic surgery equipment, anesthetics, a few variations of antibiotics, painkillers, bandages, surgical tape, distilled water, soldier pills and rations, at least from what he can tell.

He takes a soldier pill first, marveling at how quickly his body is forced to produce chakra and how he slowly becomes aware of his surroundings (he heard that they put caffeine in the pills). He picks a ration bar, biting into it with a slight grimace because its drier then a rusk and tastes even worse. Grabbing a water bottle, he gulps once, twice before closing it.

"Lumos." 

A ball light materializes, hovering a few feet above him. "Maxima." It grows brighter, looking almost like a miniature star.

 

And that's when he sees it.

 

Choking on the ration bar he was chewing, Harry quickly stands, ignoring the agony that lights up all over his body, and somehow he finds the strength across the cave where he can see the little body unceremoniously sprawled on the ground.

"Gaara!" He calls, dropping like a sack of potatoes right next to the red head. With the meager reserves he's managed amass between now and eating the soldier pill, he let's green healing chakra hover over the Suna jinchuriki.

 

There is no heart beat.

 

He runs it over his body, noticing that his death only happened a few minutes ago, less then ten. Maybe Harry can still save him. He could work with anything less then ten minutes.

He runs back to the medical supplies, seals them back into the scroll with a wisp of chakra and then runs back to Gaara. His hands glow green again in preparation for diagnostic ju—

"He's soul has already been reaped."

Harry pauses, looking up into the shadows his Lumos can't seem to pierce through, shadows that almost look alive. "I thought I was hallucinating."

"You've seen me before."

"I remember. You pretended to be Dumbledore."

"I never pretended." It says, in a whispery voice.  
"Whenever a soul has an important message to part, one that is more than likely to keep many people alive, it falls on me to make sure it is received. Dumbledore was there, in spirit I suppose, but I was the medium of communication."

"You don't strike me as someone who cares about human lives."

"I don't. Humans are pests I'd rather not deal with, but Fate is a beast that even has me in her clutches."

Harry blinks slowly, standing up. "What does that mean?"

"The Hallows." It spits out, sending a trill of fear down Harry's spine. "You were always meant to possess them."

"No." He disagrees. "I threw them away."

Silence greets him.

"What does it mean then?" He sighs out, resigned. "Is this why I'm here?"

"Not really." It says, sounding amused. "I think it will be much more amusing to watch when you realise just what you're doing in this world."

"I'm the Master of Death, right?" He grits out, annoyed. "I command you—"

"I will not take any commands from the likes of you." It seeths out. "Being Master of Death means nothing but being bonded to me. It is just a glorified title."

The temperature in the cave declines drastically, ice forming everywhere. 

"W-what does being bonded to you mean?" Harry asks, scared shitless.

Contemplative silence follows. "I could grant you boons I would not offer another."

"Can you bring him back?" He asks, pointing at Gaara.  
Death laughs, a cruel yet very amused laugh. "That is why I find you human pests. You just don't want to die and get it over with, controlled by your pitiful emotions. If only all humans were like the youngest Peverall." It adds with a touch of fond exasperation. "But alas, I will return the little psychopath's soul."

And then under It's breath, Harry hears It say something about 'obsession' and 'psychopaths'

"What happens now?"

"War, most probably." It says, sounding bored. "I'm impressed with your fast thinking, doing away with the Nanabi like that. I could help you get him back if you want."

"I'm sensing a but."

"But" Death says, amused. "you will owe me."

Harry instantly agrees.

"Foolish child, I did not tell you where or when I would bring him. I did not even tell you what I wanted in return." It cackles madly, sounding like It was being drowned by water or blood in its lungs, a gurgling sound that scared Harry

 

Before Harry can say anything, Gaara gasps awake and Death fades away.

 

 

 

 

Harry doesn't go to Suna, but goes straight to Taki. 

 

The need to see his teams burns brighter than bringing Gaara back to people that probably hate him.

He stops a lot, tending to his and Gaara's wounds, which are healing nicely. Gaara doesn't wake up, but its not very concerning. 

 

His chakra is dangerously low, and its takes a lot of precision and concentration to transfer chakra into him. He isn't a jinchuriki anymore so if Harry damages his coils, he'll never be able to mould chakra.

Its a grueling five days where Harry survives on the bland rations and occasionally river waterways. He's too weak to hunt and wary of wasting energy in case bandits...or worse the Akatsuki attack them again.

He makes it back to Taki at sunset and doesn't really catch anyone's attention until he gets to the general hospital. 

The receptionist, Kamiko-san, is very familiar with him. Some people let Harry heal them, albeit reluctantly, so he's a regular amongst these parts.

"Fū-san."

"We need help." He says slumping over. "We need help."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, the reason Death is around will make itself know soon.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trouble again.

"Fū-san." Hana greets.

  
Harry turns away from the view of the village. 'Its always so pretty from up here.' He thinks. Its been a weird week since he'd returned. Most, if not everyone was confused about him and how to treat him. He isn't a jinchuriki anymore, so there's no reason to fear or hate him.  
There has been a complete absence of glares or rotten fruit throwing. No one's uttered a single word against him.

 

 

It is simply...refreshing.

 

 

"Lady Kazami." He greets, bowing his head.

 

Truthfully speaking, the attentions he'd received from the village hadn't bothered him much. It had been perfect really, he wouldn't miss any one of them when he returned back to his world.

What had made him resent and retaliate was the thought that someone out there (a jinchuriki his age, or even younger) was going through the same, it was the thought that if he hadn't taken over Fū's body, the kid would be suffering the same things.

 

 

Making friends had complicated that. Loosing one of them had made it even more complicated. Jinketsu had been anything but nice, but Harry had immensely enjoyed his uncontaminated derision towards him. Jinketsu hadn't liked him not because he was a jinchuriki, but because he thought Harry unprofessional and too kind to he a shinobi. But he'd considered Harry a comrade, begrudgingly even a friend, and if there was something Harry valued very much, it was his friends. So there was this unending need to crush the freak squad that was responsible for Jinketsu's death.

  
"Its been awhile since we've spoken." Harry says, turning around to the view of the village again.

  
"With good reason." She adds, walking up to stand next to him, looking down at the many dots of light glittering below. "You don't come around the house much."

  
"I've never much felt welcome." He says, lightly. She's never really treated him the same after Kazami-san gave him his late wife's battle fans.

  
He sees her spare him a short glance at the corner of his eye. "I'm sure you know why I'm here."

  
"Undoubtedly, to make your displeasure towards mine and your son's relationship known...yet again." He adds, almost as if its an afterthought.

  
"I—"

  
"You know what my answer will be, yet again."

  
"Fū-san," she says, almost gritting out. "My son is in a medically induced coma." She closes her eyes, takes a breath. "I know Tsugaro is no longer in peril from associating with you, for you are no longer a jinchuriki. But he is still a pariah—"

  
"That will change soon." Harry says. "This village is progressing, despite how deeply ingrained the prejudice is. They are no longer blinded by hatred and fear. I'm an ordinary person to them and so will Tsugaro."

  
"You didn't let me finish. My son is a pariah amongst his kin, not because he is with a jinchuriki or even a male, but because he went against his parent's wishes, he went against his Clan Head's orders —"

  
"Your wishes? What about his own?"

  
"Tsugaro agreed to being the Clan Heir. His duty is to his Clan and it's people. He is my youngest son, yes, but he was chosen to lead the next generation of Kazami. A great honor—"

  
"You probably glorified the position, played on the fact that he was eight years old and couldn't think like an adult. He may love being heir, but that might have more to do with the fact that there's nothing he can do about it."

"His intellect—"

"True as that may be, he was but a child."

  
"It certainly shows that you are Clan-less. At least we gave him a choice. Other children are just born into the position."

  
"This has nothing to do with being born in a Clan, this is about free will. Tsugaro is free to love whomever he wants."

  
"You do not see to reason." She says. "If not for me, then do it for him.

  
I've always been afraid my son would come at making executive decisions with clinical precision rather without applying any empathy. But you changed him and I will always be grateful for that.

  
But let's be honest with each other. The nature of your relationship is not acceptable to society. Maybe you don't care about that, but what do you think people whisper to each other when they see my son with someone your age."

 

  
Harry left eyebrow ticked. So that's the problem. They think Tsugaro's some sort of a pedophile. Those people did not even begin to understand the irony of the situation. It was almost enough to make his lip twitch in amusement.

 

  
"We have five years of age between us."

  
"People do not care. It is why he has lost favor in our Clan. They believe him to be some pervert. He has lost his position as Clan heir, and if we're being honest, Tsugaro loved that position. It hurt him when they made Jinketsu secondary heir, in fact, it was the greatest insult.  
It can be rectified —"

  
"Damn you." Harry says quietly. "I'll talk to him. I'm not going to be a hypocrite about it though, I've had people make decisions about my life and I hated it. I'm not doing that to Tsugaro."

  
Harry isn't even going to try hard, he's had this conversation with Tsugaro before and the twerp hadn't even let him finish before changing the subject.

  
"Thank you."

  
"He's stubborn. Might just decide he doesn't give a fuck what you all think of him. So don't thank me just yet."

  
"Nonetheless," she continues, hopeful. "My son only listens when—"

  
"Quiet." He says, suddenly tense. The air is charged with chakra, a concentration Harry is intimately familiar with. He sees Hana go tense beside him, coming to the same conclusion.

  
"What's going on?" She whispers, (sorta kinda responding to situation)

  
"I'm not really sure." 'Is it Choumei?' He thinks.

  
Without much though he summons four wind clones, having them look in all directions of the village. Its fortunate they're on high grounds, so he'll see what's coming before it gets to Taki.

  
"We got a major problem on the east."

  
"And west."

  
"Tailed beasts." The third clone says not even a minute later.

  
"How the hell did we not sense them coming?" Harry says, cursing under his breath.

  
"That's because they were summoned here."

  
Harry spins, kunai raised defensively. "I suggest you leave my Lady." He tells Hana, the to the clones, he says, "Alert everyone if they haven't sensed the beasts yet. Make sure the village is evacuated." They nod before apparating, one of them grabbing Hana along with it.

  
"You again." Harry says, gaze averted. Somehow the bastard had gotten through his occlumency shields. Harry suspected it had something to do with the Sharingan and Tailed Beasts (its not like no one knows Uchiha Madara made the nine tails his bitch with a glance from his eye).) The man's voice is different and Harry can sense his emotions completely using his chakra. An overwhelming amount of malice almost completely covered by determination and impatience.

  
"Yes, me." The masked man says, phasing out from within the tree. "Fū of Takigakure, you might just be the greatest enigma I've met."

  
"What the hell is all this?" Harry asks, gesturing the approaching Tailed Beasts. He can hear the wailing sound of an alarm, no doubt the civilians are being evacuated and the shinobi are getting ready for battle.

"Just a little venting. I'm a very unsatisfied person at the moment."

  
Oh, so they'd finally figured it out. Did it mean they'd sealed the other tailed beasts?

  
The man takes a leisure step forward, seemingly not threatened by Harry's presence. "Where is the Nanabi?"

  
"I don't know where it is." Harry answers, perhaps a bit too quickly.

  
"Now now, there's no reason to lie. I know that something peculiar happened during the time of the Nanabi's extraction. You were or are a jinchuriki, no doubt, your tailed beast was supposed to have been extracted and you dead, yet here you are, perfectly healthy, as if your very soul wasn't ripped from your body a mere weeks ago."

  
"What can I say, I'm one tough cookie." Harry shrugs tensely.

The man laughs, sounding anything but amused. "I'd have thought someone in your position wouldn't have the time to make jokes."

 

 

With a slight feint to his left, Harry expertly dodges the kunai that whiz past him, launching himself towards the masked man with a chakra enhanced dash. His punch is met with a duck and a punch to his middle, which he slips around with a single unsteady twist that he follows up with a mid air roundhouse kick.

 

The man phases through it, but Harry doesn't let it startle him like it did before. He's aware of what the man can do, at least from the looks of it. Planting an open palm on the bark of the tree, he sends a shockwave of chakra out through it which propels him away from a kick that would've undoubtedly broken his jaw.

  
Harry's barely touched down when he follows, fist raised. Harry blocks, dodges, ducks and slips away again, a bit surprised that he can keep up.

  
"Fire Style: Great fireball jutsu!" The man chants, blowing out a large ball of fire at Harry, who simply apparates behind him and punches him on the side. He apparates again when the man turns around, punching him at the back of his head, and does it again, apparating when the man responds to the attack, but it only works twice more before he starts phasing through the him.

  
"Where is the Nanabi?"

  
"I don't know where it is. And even if I did know, what makes you think I'd tell you?"

  
"Oh, I don't know," he says lightly, brushing off imaginary dirt, "maybe because I might just decide to raze this village to the ground if you aren't complacent."

  
"As if Taki shinobi would let you."

  
"Observe then." He says, turning to the right. Harry follows his gaze and curses. He lunges for the edge of the branch he's on, wanting to get down the tree, but a kick knocks him back to where he was. "I'm not letting you go th—"

 

  
"Crucio!" He snarls out (wheezing a bit from that kick, because fuck does it hurt like a bitch), watching satisfactorily as the man tenses and falls over, groan of pain leaving his mouth. Harry doesn't bother cutting off the spell, even though it eats at his magic, as he jumps down the bark as fast as he can. He has an endless supply around him if his reserves are depleted.

 

He apparates once, twice and then he's in front of the six tails, Saiken, Choumei had called him. He raises a palm, calling chakra to his index finger and quickly draws a seal in the air.

 

There's a defeaning rip, air gathering as a portal twice as big as the slug appears in front of it. Harry's hand twitches ever so slightly and the portal swallows the beast along with it's forming tailed beast bomb.

  
"I will not let you stand in the way of peace." An impassive voice says from behind him. Harry turns to meet purple ring irises.

 

  
"Almighty Push!"

 

The sensation of being swat at like a fly is not fun, at all. Its literally laughable, because that is Harry's predicament at the moment.

 

Being swat at like a fly. (He will never swat them away again)

  
He's saved from many broken bones by apparation (bless magic), and appears a distance away with just mild bruising on his side.

  
'Seems like there's a new player in the game.' He thinks, applying green healing chakra to the bruise. He doesn't get enough time to heal all of it, because the orange haired freak (all Akatsuki are freaks) with piercings launches himself at Harry, flying into a brutal and quick taijutsu katakana.

Harry coats a thin layer of chakra around his body to lessen the blows, but the barrier eats away at his concentration.

  
It takes forty seconds of being knocked around like a plaything for him to get a hang of it, then he's blocking punches and kicks, and sending his own back with equal brutality.

He slipes past orange guy's gaurd (which happens to be a poised fist), sliding to his blindside, which is behind him, but the guy dodges as if he can see Harry just fine.

The green haired teen quickly leaps away from the danger, putting some distance between him and the freak so he can asses the situation, but ends up getting kicked from behind because he didn't take his eyes of his enemy.

He quickly picks himself up from the ground, wincing at the open wound on his elbow. He looks at the now two orange haired enemies.

He hadn't sensed the other guy because their chakra is completely identical. Is that even possible? (A kekkie genkai maybe?) Their eyes are identical as well, but the similarities end there.

He summons a wind clone, and with a grunt they both leap at the enemy. Either way, he'll find out soon enough.

 

 

 

 

 

There's a simmering rage growing at the pit of her gut as she surveys the damage that's slowly befalling the village. There are shinobi everywhere running around like headless chicken, the evacuation of civilians having failed when six orange haired figures had started attacking everyone.

They were ruthless, killed even infants without much care.

And they were Akatsuki, the scum responsible for Jinketsu's death.

  
There are still two other tailed beasts in the village, the Rokobi and Ichibi, and its almost impossible, the situation they're in, because its hard fighting the tailed beasts and those Akatsuki freaks at the same time.

  
"Himari!"

  
She startles, turning around at the call. "Shibuki-sama?"  
He's standing with a group of at least thirty shinobi and kunoichi. "Follow me." He commands, leaping away, the shinobi following closely behind.

 

She's never seen him like this.

 

She'd always assumed he was a coward, smart, but a coward nonetheless. But she was wrong. There's conviction set on his features and not even a hint of the fear he shows when he jumps away from his own shadow.

  
"Eiyu no Mizu!" He says, leading them beneath Taki's largest tree.

  
"It exists?" Someone asks, Himari doesn't know who. She's equally as shocked, she'd thought it was just a story that Shibuki-sama's father had drank it to stop the last invaders to breach Taki's impeccable gaurds.

  
"Yes, and whomever wants to drink it, should drink it with me. I cannot guarantee you will live through the after effects, but our village is in danger, and when I became a shinobi I swore an oath, to die for my people, to die for my village."

 

"Hai, Takigake-sama!" Everyone says, grimly, but incredibly inspired.

 

They follow him deep into the tree, through a carvarn that looked as if it had been dug out, chakra coating their shoes, helping them take larger and faster steps.  
Someone lights a demon lantern fire jutsu, hovering the ball of flame above them when it gets darker and darker until the reach a blue-lite room. The well of blue shimmering water before them is majestic enough that everyone who didn't know it existed until now figure out what it is. 'Hero Water.'

 

  
Shibuki-sama, without hesitation grabs a goblet at the edge of the well and scoops up a cup full of the water, then gulps it all down. Himari is by his side before he even finishes, other following closely behind her.

 

She takes the cup from him and fills it with the water, before she gulps it down as well.

 

It burns stronger than any sake she's ever tasted as it goes down her throat and settles in her stomach. She even feels it as her body digests it (she would've thought it would take te for that to happen) and it passes into her system. And then...then just like Shibuki-sama besides her, she lights up like a Super Nova, her coils expanding in size and producing chakra in amounts she'd never experienced before.

 

  
She feels a scream, not one of pain, but of utter joy bubble in her throat and she let's it out. Then, faster than even, she sprints out of the hole in the tree, coming out way faster than she'd gotten in.

 

 

The Akatsuki will feel her wrath.

 

 

  
Gaara is still trying to get used to the silence in his head.

 

He doesn't feel the unending need to prove his existence, or in other words, kill someone in cold blood. For the first time since he'd killed his uncle Yashamaru, he can think clearly, and for him self.

 

 

And the sleeping.

 

 

Gaara loves sleeping, he cannot fathom how he'd gone so long without it because sleep was beautiful and Shukaku was evil for keeping him away from it. Unfortunately, he couldn't sleep now because the village was under attack.

Gaara does not care for these people, but he cares for the green haired boy, Fū, the one he'd tried to kill before. Because he knows that he'd be dead without the other boy. He'd kept Gaara alive for no reason other than that he was a jinchuriki or had been. Usually, that was enough reason for people to hate him or try to kill him, but no, this boy, he cared. And maybe him being a former jinchuriki has something to do with that, but Gaara thinks it much much more, because even though fate has dealt Gaara a rotten hand all his life, it didn't give him an excuse to be a cold blooded murderer (even if he had a voice whispering in his ear that he should kill someone and the only way to shut it up was to do so, but then it would be back an hour later but Gaara didn't care because he just wanted peace and silence in his head, but that wasn't true, Gaara was just weak), because the Konoha jinchuriki was a pleasant human being, and so was the former Taki jinchuriki.

 

 

So Gaara would help as best as he could, he owed the boy this much. He owed himself too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like this chapter a lot......it's where my plot will really start to shine....I'm so impatient to get to end where I can drop a super bomb on you guys. 
> 
> Anyway~ hope you enjoyed the chapter. Comments and kudos are appreciated (^-^)


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke and Naruto talk.

"If you continue to remain tight lipped about the Nanabi's location, I will be forced to do terrible, terrible things." Orange haired freak, Pain, he'd called himself, says.

"I think what you're doing now is pretty terrible." Harry says, casting a quick glance around him. There's a bit of dispair growing within him at the sight of the village up in flames. Taki had worked very hard to get here, after all. "I don't really know where it is, okay. I sent it somewhere even I can't retrieve it, so you Akatsuki scum should forget about it because you aren't going to get it."

Those purple ringed eyes watch him impassively. "I cannot tell if I'm being deceived or not, either way, I will find out soon enough."

Harry jumps away, having felt the hair at the back of his neck stand, and avoids being crushed under the weight of a huge spiked panda bear. 

 

"Summoning jutsu (Kuchiyose)" a woman, with orange hair as well, says, voice alarmingly blank and low, just like Pain's. A huge rhinoceros, a huge weird looking bird and a huge Cerberus are summoned.

There's five monsters (no offence to Choumei's siblings, but they were destroying his village and killing innocents) now, and Harry doesn't think he'll be able to take the all out without major help.

He ducks, avoiding a grabbing hand, striking out with a swiping kick at a new orange haired freak jumps over. This one has long hair and is male, face just as blank as the others. Harry is starting to see a pattern here.  
The long haired freak jumps over the kick, leaping up to Pain's side. 

The other three join him, making them five in total.  
One can summon, Pain has some sort of gravity controlling power whilst the other three have not shown what they can do just yet. But they all have one thing in common. 

The eyes. 

Harry is pretty sure they can see through each others eyes.

He summons two wind clones, having them watch his back and side so that he doesn't have any blind spots, there might be more orange haired freaks out there just waiting to pound him.

With a simple tiger seal, he drags in a lungfull of air, then expels it as the "Fire style: Phoenix Flame jutsu!" 

There's a short stubby freak that jumps in front of the jutsu and absorbs its chakra.

"Fuck me George." He curses.

"What's a George and why do you want it to fuck you!?"

Himari screams, coming down like a shooting star, chakra burning brighter than it had ever burned before.

The resulting collision between her and the ground probably knocks Pain and his goons away, Harry doesnt really know because he apparates away before she even touches the ground.

When the dust settles, he appears besides her with a sharp crack. "Who do I have to sleep with to get that awesome power boost?"

Himari gives a loud barking laugh. "A couple old geezers."

"Bluh." Harry fake gags, feeling a bit more confident with Himari on his side. "Forget it."

"So, what's going on here?" She asks, brandishing her kunai. "What's with these freaks anyway?"

"Oh my gods, I call them freaks too." Harry says, brandishing his own kunai. "The short shit over there can absorb jutsu, and chakra, the disfigured dead looking bitch you just crushed could summon some pretty wierd shit, the guy with antenna like piercings on his ears still hasn't done shit but observe me, the hot guy with long hair's the same, hasn't done anything but watch me, except that one time where he tried to grab me. I think you should avoid getting touched by that freak."

"Right. What about the drop dead gorgeous freak looking at us now?"

"The guy calls himself Pain. He's real dangerous, has some sort of gravity controlling power. I think there's a five second interval where he can't use that jutsu, but I haven't been able to take advantage of that because he doesn't seem to need to use the jutsu around me and I haven't really proved my theory correct. Oh, and these fuckers can actually se through each others eyes."  
"How'd you figure that out?"

"They beat the shit out of me until I did."

She snorts. "Alright, how about we deal with Pain last. Let's kill the guys who haven't done shit, I feel like they have pretty dangerous abilities."

 

"Got it. Wind style: Vacuum Bullet!"

 

 

 

"Did you hear?"  
"Who hasn't? A new kage's been chosen."  
"Yeah, I hear it's one of the elders, Danzo Shimura."

"Che," Sasuke snorts, hands in his pockets as he walks through the markets of his almost completely trashed village.

That man, Danzo, puts him on edge. Sasuke's met him before, its hard not to have, especially with him being besties with Homaru, who happens to be Sasuke's legal guardian.

"Hey teme." 

"Dobe." Sasuke greets, the usual bite behind the word having disappeared for a while now. To think, the dobe has—

"Wanna spar with me, teme?"

"Not today." Sasuke says. "I'm not really in the mood."

"Weird." Naruto says, a dumb look on his face. "You never miss out on the chance to show me you're better than me." 

"I've got things to think about."

"Like?"

Sasuke gives him a side glance. "You, for instance."

Naruto blanches, face going beet red. "T-teme! Don' tell me you have a c-crush on me! Sakura-chan will murder me!"

Sasuke, feeling his cheeks heating up in embarrassment, snorts. "That's not it, idiot." He sighs. "I was thinking about what happened, three weeks ago."

 

Naruto's playful expression instantly goes somber. Sasuke completely understands, something very unlike him. 

Naruto had lost someone he considered a grandfather and had a secret he prefared no one knew revealed, then he was told the world was definitely going to war to protect him and the remaining Jinchuriki all in one day. That was a lot to take in, no matter the person.

"Oh." He says.

"Yeah." Sasuke agrees, tone equally pensive. "Itachi, he's part of those guys that attacked the village, part of the team that wants the thing inside of you."

He stops walking, hands in his pockets clenching. Sasuke makes a decision, there and then. "I won't let Itachi take you, I won't let either one of those criminals do it too."

Naruto looks up at him, startled. "S-Sasuke?"

"Let's get stronger Naruto, together, so that I can protect you and you can watch my back."

Naruto looks at him, still startled, and Sasuke is almost alarmed when he sees tears forming in those cristal clear curlean orbs.  
The weirdest thing happens.

 

The idiot hugs him.

 

Another weird thing happens soon after. Sasuke feels himself slowly melt into the embrace. Naruto, oddly enough, is a good hugger (Sasuke isn't surprised. The idiot managed to talk Mimochi Zabuza, the demon of the mist (not an easy name to get in a bloody country) to submission, his hugs probably melt the coldest of hearts)

"You're not gonna cry on me, are you?"

"What?!" Then he ruins the moment, screaming in Sasuke's ear. "T-there was something in my eye teme!"

"Right." Sasuke drawls amusedly. "Tears."

"Teme!"

"Dobe."

"Asshole!"

"Idiot."

"Duckbutt head!"

"Dumb face."

"Dick!"

"Shut up you idiots! Oh shit, so sorry Uchiha-sama!" A vendor says.

Naruto snickers, bending over and laughing so hard Sasuke feels himself getting infected. The idiot hadn't laughed in awhile, and contrary to the popular belief, Sasuke was addicted to Naruto's mirth. It made him forget, for however long before he remembered his mission. For the first time, perhaps in years, Sasuke feels a genuine grin growing on his lips, small is it may be, he feels lighter, a bit happier and there are a thousand butterflies in his gut when Naruto gives him a soft little smile, so much more different from the way he grins, and shoves him softly.

"You should smile more often teme. The stick lodged up your ass isn't so visible when your face is like that."

The idiots words only serve to amuse him more. "Hn. I suddenly feel an intense need to kick your ass. Let's go train dobe."

"You got it teme. We're gonna get so strong, we'll hand the Akatsuki it's ass on a plater."

 

"Yeah." 'And we'll take down Itachi together.' He thinks. 'That's a promise.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm starting on some bit of SasuNaru. I just love the pairing.  
> Danzo is Hokage btw, this is why i didnt kill him. He will serve a very horrible purpose, he's going to do Taki great injustice. I hate him so much in the story, but he really has his purposes. His transgressions will nudge Harry in the right direction, it will lead him to finding the truth about why he's in the shinobi world.
> 
> Leaving now is not an option, not after Death told Harry not to get the tailed beasts sealed. He has to participate in the coming war.
> 
> Please leave comments. I wanna hear your thoughts.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuation.

"Ok, we gotta wrap this shit up fast." Himari says, a bead of sweat trailing down the side of her face. "The longer I spend in battle, the less likely I am to survive the after effects of drinking Hero Water."

Harry gives her a worried look because her chakra is wavering, dulling in its brightness with every passing second.

"Got it." He says, gaze going back to the three freaks in front of them.

So this is what went down the last twenty minutes:  
-They established not to get touched by cute face (long hair, piercings on his cheeks) and antennae guy (roguish and mean looking, with antenna like piercings on his ears) because then you're pretty much dead.

-Antennae guy could heal the others.

-Drop dead gorgeous was drop dead dangerous. Like really fucking dangerous. He had to be taken down pronto.

-The six orange haired freaks were actually one person. Harry had first thought drop dead gorgeous was the one controlling them, but then he'd had contact with each and everyone of the freaks and they were as cold and lifeless as corpses (except the fact that they have chakra running through).

-They took out short shit chakra absorbing guy, creepy summoning Lady and the walking weapon (this guy was by far the creepiest of the six. So much skin and multiple heads. )

-They destroyed the bodies because they could be revived otherwise.

-The real Pain was near by, transmitting chakra through the piercings all the freaks had on their faces. Harry could see the tethers of chakra trailing the air, what with him being a sensor and all.

"Enough!" Drop dead gorgeous freak says, stopping Harry from completing a set of hand seals. "Your continued resistance leaves me no choice."

"Resistance? What the actual fuck is wrong with you?" Harry asks, honestly confused. "You're acting like I owe you the Nanabi. 

News flash you freak, it doesn't belong to you or any mothafucker out there."

"Totally in love with the cursing." Himari says, under her breath. "What the hell do you need the Tailed Beasts for anyway?"

"Do you really think he's gonna tell you?" Harry asks, casting her a look of disbelief.

"He's a villain and you know how villains just love telling whoever's gonna listen what they're up to."

"Eh, true."

"With the power of the Tailed Beasts, I will control a weapon that will bring the ninja world to its knees. All your ceaseless wars and hatred will diminish until they're none existent, and there will be peace, because only those who have felt true pain will experience peace."

Himari and Harry stare at Pain, then at each other, same thoughts running through they're heads. "Thats messed up."  
"I couldn't agree more." Harry says.

 

"Now, you will feel true pain." The freak scowls (it's the first expression he's made since the battle started)

 

Something about that line is very ominous sounding.

 

 

Shibuki can barely see in front of his hand, his eyes having gone blurry a few minutes ago. His muscles ache something fierce, and never before had his bones felt this brittle.

 

He's done fighting, done for the day and probably forever.   
It had taken the combined efforts of all his shinobi to get the Ichibi and Rokobi out of the village. One by one, those who had taken Hero water flattered and went down, their bodies giving out. Shibuki had held on, he had fought until he couldn't move.

Which is why he's lying on the ground, motionless.

"I've heard whispers of your name here and there, Uchiha Madara." He rasps out, having sensed the malicious chakra settle beside him.

"Undoubtedly you would've." He staring down at the Takikage. "I underestimated the strength your village carries, but Takigakure ends here today."

"If that's what you think will happen, then you're still underestimating her." Shibuki says, amused. "You think your little assault will end us and the values this village was established under?"

"Little assault?" Madara or Tobi, whoever his name is looks around. "I suppose this damage can simply be rectified by rebuilding. You've managed to protect the civilians even though you were unable to evacuate them from the village. But, what if all of this and everyone in it was destroyed?"

"You don't have that kind of power." Shibuki says, amusement shriveling up like a dry prune, praying to the gods its true.

"Is that so?" Madara asks, with dark amusement. "I guess we'll see then." 

 

"He's gathering an insane amount of chakra up there."

"Why don't you just teleport to him and kick his dead ass?!" Himari scream/asks. She can also feel the chakra gathering, even a civilian can. That's how much it is.

"Because failure to defeat this guy means that everyone's probably gonna die, myself included. We need to protect the civilians and the other shinobi."

"You know what he's going to do?"

"A large scale Almighty Push, its his specialty after all.."  
Himari's becomes ashen. "We need to get everyone out of here." She says, shaken.

Harry nods, closing his eyes and gathering as much as nature energy as quickly as he can. He feels stronger without Choumei around, because he can control his chakra and magic, they're his own after all. He doesn't need to hold back because he knows what he'll get if he goes all out. 

 

Sometimes, having too much power is more trouble that good.

"Multi-Wind clone jutsu." He says, having hundreds of clones appearing around him. He doesn't have time to map out his chakra and find out how many clones he's summoned, so he quickly gives them orders. "Whoever you come across should be apparated at least ten miles away from the village walls, got it. When the jutsu starts, I need you all to create barriers around whoever close by, alright?"

"Yes, Sir!" They all say in unison before jumping away.

 

Gaara looks up at the tiny black dot above, gathering an insane amount of chakra.  
'This can mean no good.'  
Gathering as much chakra as his semi exhausted body can manage, he starts building up a thick barrier of sand, using the sand around himself as well, around the hospital, which happens to be close by. There are people in there who are injured and can't move, which means they won't be able to run away from what's coming.

 

With his dying breath, Shibuki thinks only of the well being of his people and curses the man behind the mask.

 

The high concentration of chakra in the air drags Tsugaro out of his medically induced coma. He gasps awake with a name on his tongue.

 

"Almighty Push!"

 

The words are followed by a roar and rumble of power, the earth shudders, tears and cracks and all is lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if you haven't guessed it yet, Taki's been flattened and Harry isn't going to search out Pein and fight him, like Naruto did.
> 
> No, they've got a major problem that I'll explain painstakingly in the next chapter. And I suppose this is where Danzo's horrible deeds will make themselves known.


	22. Chapter 22

The world shatters and Harry feels it all. The raw chakra in the air, the deafening sound of screams and wails of terror, the unending force barring him down—its agony, but he endures.

 

Its his purpose as a jinchuriki after all.

 

It feels like forever before he can breath, before his lungs can handle a mouth full of air. He pants, utterly exhausted. The power of nature is still accessible to him, but his body has reached its limits. He fears he'd damage something if he were to continue to fight. There are a thousand audible pops all around him, a flash of a horrible migraine, and he's getting memories from his clones. Everyone who had been at the epicenter of the blast of chakra hadn't survived, unfortunately.

 

Those clones had been destroyed and Harry hadn't been able to descern the memories as he was completely focused on keeping the protective barrier around himself up. He sits there for a moment, still panting heavily, before suddenly going tense, a hand shakily reaching into his pouch and grabbing a kunai.

 

"You bastard." He growls, hoarsely as Pein slowly descends to the ground before him.

"Do you still refuse to tell me where—"

 

"You said you were doing all of this for peace." Harry growls, feeling tears of anger brimming in his eyes. "Does any of this look like peace?" He says, gesturing the clear land around him, the people trying, futilely, to pick themselves up through the agony. He gestures to the children crying over their dead parents, the men and women crying over the rubble of the businesses they'd worked their whole lives to create, the source of income for their families.

"They now know true pain. They will crave peace."

 

"No, they won't." Harry says, honestly surprised that a human being could look at this amount of devastation and not even blink twice. "What you've done is make them hate. There won't ever be peace when there's hate. Peace is not the absence of war," he says, standing straighter, "it is a state of mind. Do you know what that means Pain? Peace is not the same for everyone so there is absolutely no assurance that oppression will work. Instead it will breed hatred and rebellion and even more hatred. You will ruin the little beauty left in this world."

"What little beauty is left in this world?" The man repeats in question. "There is no beauty left in the world. You, as a jinchuriki, know that more intimately than anyone does."

 

"Yes, that's true. I face the ugliness of the world everyday." Harry says with a shrug. "My vision is forever obscured by the scorn and prejudice that comes with being a human sacrifice. But that also means that a single flickering flame of light is very visible in the darkness that surrounds me.

 

I've suffered a great deal at the hands of people who were supposed to protect me, people who were supposed to help me, so I know, that no amount of pain is enough of an excuse for you to tear the world apart and rebuild it on your terms. Everyone deserves peace, yes, but their own peace, not yours."

 

Before Pein can speak, a vortex opens up next to him and the masked man steps out of it. There's a very noticeable limp to his step, a tremor in his hand that's even more visible. No doubt the crucio doings, Harry muses with an amused smirk. "There's no use in dwelling on a reality that will soon cease to exist. Pein, I think they've had enough for a day. Fuu of Takigakure." He turns to Harry, demeanor going completely hostile.

"Consider yourself lucky you're a jinchuriki, otherwise you would no longer be part of the land of the living. Let this be a warning to you and the Five Great Nations. The Akatsuki will not appreciate resistance. Bring your jinchuriki to us or your village and its people will not he spared." With a dizzying swirl, the masked man and all Pain's goons are gone. Harry waits a full two minutes before reacting.

 

"Himari!" He shouts, skidding to a halt next to her prone body. He summons twenty wind clones, grimacing when his tenketsu struggle to release the chakra. The clones disperse, going in all directions of the village with instructions to heal the injured. His hands glow pale green as they hover above her ashen body.

 

Luckily her heartbeat may be weak, but its not slowing down. Her body is struggling to regenerate the dead cells, but there isn't a source of energy to get power from since she's pretty much used up all her chakra, she's drier than the desert dunes of Suna. "I'm gonna fix you up." He says. "Damn idiot."

 

 

 

 

"What do you mean we aren't getting aid?" "The Waterfall's Feudal Lord was adviced....against it." Taketa says, quietly.

Harry pauses his healing when the pale glow of chakra wavers between blue and green. He doesn't want to poison the poor child.

 

"Taketa-san, you're telling me that our own Feudal Lord refuses to offer us aid?"

 

"Yes." The man says, cringing. The poor man is tense as a log, his eyes convey his exhaustion, little scratches litter what little of his body visible and there's a defeated slump to his stature. He's probably thinking of the worst, which is what's going through Harry's head as well.

 

Harry sighs, a bit weary, placing a gentle hand on the man's shoulder.

"At ease Taketa-san, go see your family. I'll speak to the elders."

 

"Thank you, Fū-sama." The man says, bowing faintly before leaving the room.

 

The suffix still surprises him, in fact, most of what's happened in the past few days is surprising. Takigakure is falling apart, divided into two factions, one that loathes Harry and believes he should be delivered to the Akatsuki or even killed for what he's brought down on the village and another that appreciates that he's doing his very best to keep everyone alive.

 

"Kamiko-san, please take Aino-chan for me."

 

"Of course." Harry smiles briefly at her, before standing and walking out of the tent. He stops briefly at the flaps, putting a hand over his pounding heart when a memory assualts him.

 

 

**_"I have to tell them, before someone hurts you!"_ **

 

**_"No, Aino! They'll kill yo—" Arrows whiz past his head, barely missing him, but Aino isn't so lucky. There's blood everywhere and he can't help but look. Foolishly, even with arrows sticking out of her body, she runs forward, serving her master even as her life ebbs away._ **

 

**_She never makes it to the mob._ **

 

**_"Aino!" The scream that leaves his mouth is equal parts filled with murderous rage, terror and sorrow._ **

 

**_He turns around and run though, he can't stop now. He has to protect them._ **

 

 

Harry exhales slowly, tucking away the ball of confusion and other feelings behind his occlumency walls.

 

He'll deal with this new memory later.

 

Seeing the elders is exhausting, not because they hate him or anything, but because they're demanding things the villagers and Harry himself can't deliver.

 

They always just zap his strength away when they start speaking.

"Good afternoon, Fū-san."

"Afternoon Aiko-chan."

"Afternoon Fū-san."

"Mitsugushi-kun." He greets with a nod, faint smile on his face. He's happy that some people can set aside their sorrow and dispair to offer someone a smile. It makes trying to save what's left of Taki worth it.

 

Some people will never get over their past hurts though, Harry's learned that from his interactions with the people of Taki.

 

Some hate him even though he isn't a jinchuriki anymore, some hate him because they believe its his fault the Akatsuki destroyed the village and some don't even know why they hate him. Sometimes you just gotta let them be, let them realise their mistakes by themselves.

 

 

 

"Ao-san, Tsechi-san, Itama-san, Chiyo-san, good afternoon." Harry says, entering the elders tent, with a deep bow.

 

"Fū-kun." Chiyo greets, whilst the others nod. "Please, come in."

 

Harry's sits down with an exhausted slump. He isn't worried about etiquette, everyone is exhausted, him more so than anyone. He's never done so much transfiguration and extension charms in his life (and he's never been so grateful for potions and herbology), the tents and most of the equipment Taki was lacking were all transfigured from any sort of material Harry could get his hands on.

 

Keeping a constant supply of magic going into each individual item he'd created was giving him a headache, but his obligations didn't end there. The hospital was short staffed. Gaara may have saved many medic nin from Pain's attack, but the village had never faced a tragedy as such where only a few people in the whole village filled thousands of people were uninjured, so Harry was healing someone whenever he could spare the time. It was taxing to his concentration.

Taki's people would've starved or perished due to hypothermia and animal attacks or other elements of weather.

"We've tried everything. No one will help us."

"What about Iwa or Kumo?" Tsechi asks.

"Really?" Chiyo drawls out in question. "Those bastards would see us die before helping."

"What I don't understand is why our own Feudal Lord is refusing to help." Ao says.

"The Waterfall Daimyo refuses to help us because of the other Kage." Itama says, quietly. "It is our fault that the remaining Jinchuriki have left their villages. I can't help but smell Shimura scum written all over this though. That man..." He trails off.

 

"The fact that they would allow the Akatsuki to take their jinchuriki and doom this world to mass oppression and dictatorship is horrifying. What is the world turning to?" Ao says, a red flush of anger gathering on her wrinkled cheeks.

 

"They were probably offered immunity." Harry says. "I don't think they want to go through the same thing we did. Honestly, I don't blame them."

 

"What do we do now? We're running out of resources, and we can't expect Fū-san to help us with everything."

 

"Maybe we should ask the Feudal Lord of the Land of Whirlpools to offer us land. I'm sure I can convince him to let us settle on the land that used to be Uzu." Harry says, when the silence persists.

"That graveyard?" Itama says, scandalized.

"Our village is a graveyard. We've lost and buried thousands of people just a few days ago." Chiyo says, with a pointed look.

"That seems unethical though, don't you think? Settling on what used to be another village?" Tsechi asked.

"We're a shinobi village Tsechi-sama. Our damn profession is unethical." Chiyo says, rolling her eyes.

"So it's settled then?" Ao says, rubbing her chin.

 

"It's not a done deal yet, he might not agree to giving us the land." Harry says, looking at his thighs. "I think if he does, a few things need to change. We can't live under segregation any longer. Can you see what not having a treaty with another ninja village has done to us? We had no aid when we were invaded and now everyone is reluctant to help us."

"I suppose you're right Fū-san, arrogance has no place in our current situation. We must ensure the survival of our people." Ao-san says. "When do you think you'll return?"

"A trip to the Land of Whirlpools will take a week, so probably three weeks at least."

"Good." Tsechi says, nodding. "We'll try to convince the shinobi council and the civilian council to meet up. It won't be easy with their adamant difference in opinions."

"Go, Fū-san. Prepare for you journey." Chiyo says. "Bring with you a protection detail of two. Pick someone you trust.

 

Harry nods, taking the words to heart. There are very very few people he can depend on to watch his back after all. Convincing the Daimyo of Hi no Uzu to give them land will be easy. With a simple glance into his eye, Harry will leave the suggestion and the man will have a hard time finding a reason why not to help them.

 

 

 

 

 

Harry just wishes it was that easy convincing Tsugaro it wasn't his fault his parents were dead.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans come into motion

"I want this to go the way I planned it. Its the three of us, a standard team. We're moving in formation 2.3, Gaara," he says, facing the redhead, "this means you'll be at the front, working as our main defense. Ichigo-sensei—"

"I'm no longer your sensei Fu-san. Sempai will suffice."

"Ichigo-sempai, you'll be at the centre and your duty will be attacking whatever enemy we come across and bringing them down instantly. I'll be at the back since I'm the fastest and therefore can react faster to counter an attack on our persons. I will also work as the teams sensor."

"Are you sure you should be bringing that squirt with you?" Himari asks, leaning heavily on a crutch. "Not in a bad way." She adds when Gaara gives her a flat stare.

"He carried a bijuu for twelve years and survived an extraction. Believe me, he's a very tough squirt."

"Can't argue with that." Mina adds.

A bunch of people have gathered around to see them off. Word had spread that Taki wasn't getting an aid from the capital, so many people (even those that hated him) were praying for the success of this mission. Honestly speaking, settling down in Uzushio was a last course of action. It was great disrespect for another village to do that but times were trying. 

Pain's jutsu hadn't just destroyed the very foundation of the village, but it had taken the lands fertility with it and destroyed the ecosystem which affected the weather and the amount of vegetation and animals that were thriving around the former great village.

It was a mess.

 

One even Harry with all his magic just couldn't repair. What the village needed was to focus on the possibility of another assault from the Akatsuki, especially because they weren't satisfied with Harry's lack of cooperation.

 

"Alright then, if that's all I think we should be heading off." Ichigo says.  
Casting one last glance at the gathered crowd, a curl of disappointment settles heavily on Harry's gut when he doesn't see Tsugaro. "Right." He says with a nod.

 

 

"Blugh," Naruto spits out in disgust. "What the crap hell is this anyway Kakashi-sensei? It tastes nothing like ramen."

"Maybe if you didn't insist we make ramen with the limited supplies we have, out here in the middle of gods know where without a recipe, then maybe we wouldn't be having such a poor lunch." Sakura hissed, shoving the disgusting noodles in her mouth with grimace.

"I agree with Sakura." Sasuke says, causing the pink haired girl to go pink faced. "Why are we even here Kakashi?"

Kakashi's previously content demeanor changes. "Our Hokage, he had unhealthy interests towards Naruto and Sasuke. I couldn't in the right mind continue to stay back in the village when I knew exactly what it is he wanted to do."

Naruto swallows painfully, his normally playful expression dulling instantly. Sasuke too looks a bit unnerved. 

"What did he want with them sensei?" Sakura asks.

"What else would he want besides the beast that lives inside of me and Sasuke's eyes?" Naruto asks, his right hand unconsciously inching towards his abdomen, where the seal lies.

The silence that follows is stifling, but Kakashi breaks it not a moment later.

"You needn't worry about that. Let's just say that there are some people out there who'd rather have you alive then de—" 

Kakashi stills, going completely in guard. "Get behind me," he says, standing up. 

The kids drop their bowls of ramen(?) and run behind Kakashi, kunai already brandished.

"—ol, yah fool. I wonder where the brats are, hope they ain't playing with forest rats, yah!" A voice...rhymed.

"I swear to every god thats exists, I'll cut your tongue out if you don't shut up Lord Bee!" Another, feminine voice spoke.

"I can't help myself, its how I roll. If you can't face the rhymes, then maybe go."

There's a hiss, very feline like, and a man comes barreling through the trees, his butt on blue fire.   
9Sakura is embarrassed to say she lets her guard down a bit. The blue fire reminds her of the fierce Taki genin who'd saved them from Orochimaru.

"Fool, ya fool." The man shouts, trying to extinguish the fire.

"Oh." The blonde woman says, surprise written on her previously venomous looking expression. "Hatake-san." She greets with a flourish.

"Nii-san, Bee-san." Kakashi greets curtly, putting away his kunai.

"I didn't think you'd already be here." She says, still surprised at their presence.

"It was in my best interest to take the rest of my team with me."

"No doubt you have AnBu trailing you as we speak." Yugito says, tucking a blonde strand behind her ear. "Allow me to introduce myself." She' says, looking at the three children. "I am Yugito Nii, the jinchuriki of the two tails and this is Killer Bee, he's the jinchuriki of the eight tails."

"Its nice to meet ya, but hard to greet ya." Bee says, still struggling with his burning butt.

"Forgive him, he does that all the time. Unfortunately, he was dropped as an infant and...he never recovered." She says, the last part infused with wry humor.

"These are my students, Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki." Kakashi says, gesturing the three.

"Naruto Uzumaki, I've heard a great many things about   
you from a mutual friend. I think you remember him, Fū of Takigakure?" 

"You know Fū-chan?" Naruto asks, getting a little excited.

"Not in person, I've only conversed with him through letters, but I'd like to think I do."

"You two are just like Naruto?" Sakura asks, shyly.

"We're jinchuriki, yes, if that's what you're asking." Yugito. "But enough small talk, Hatake-san, there is a lot that needs to be discussed."

"I'm listening." Kakashi says, absolutely serious.

 

"You neglected to inform us this trip would almost take no time at all." Ichigo comments, flanking Harry's right. 

"Well, I made a show of letting everyone know what route we'd take so I'd delay those that sent assassins after us."

"Ingenious." Gaara comments.

"We must make haste. I doubt the Daimyo of Hi no Uzu will allow us to lay claim of Uzushio—"

"Then the point of this trip?" Ichigo interrupts.

"That is but of small consequence, him disagreeing to our plee that is." Harry says mysteriously. "I will make him agree."

"I trust you not to entice a war between our nations." Ichigo says, dryly.

Harry laughs. "Heavens no. Relax sempei, I have my ways."

"Another one of your endless abilities I presume." 

"I suppose." Harry drawls. "Wait for me here, I'll return in an hour, at least. If I don't return then, I'm probably dead. This scroll," he says, taking it out from his weapons pouch, "has a set location for you to visit. The people you will find there, they will understand you like no other, Gaara." He tells the boy. "I have a plan for the future and it doesn't end with anymore jinchuriki dead."

Then he slips away from the two, quietly.

"Do you think he'll make it back?" Gaara asks, looking down at the scroll.

"Probably." Ichigo says. "His luck is fucking insane."

 

As Harry enters the Daimyo's residence, something about the exterior and interior design of the whole compound has him thinking about Aino. He wishes he could remember more about her than her sad ending. The same sad ending that leaves him filled with nothing but carnal rage. Was she a past lover of his? Had he left Ginny and children behind for her? What happened after that night?

So many questions, but with nothing but short memories to make do with. At this rate, he'd grow old and die without knowing what happened or he'd never make it back home.

"Leave all weapons on your person at the door." A samurai says. "If you enter with even the smallest of them, you will be cut down where you stand."

"Got it." He says, leaving his impressive collection of kunai, senbon and shuriken at the door. He walks into the meeting hall, where the Daimyo is waiting for him on the otherside of a mat wall. Harry almost curses loudly.

"Daimyo-sama." He greets, sinking to his knees and bowing deeply.

"Fū of Takigakure. I've heard a lot about you. An impressive shinobi I must admit."

"Your humble words—"

"Forgive me child, I'm in no mood for small talk. What is it you want from me?"

"As you've probably heard, Takigakure was lain to waste just a few weeks ago. Try as we might, we cannot recover, especially because all the other countries have turned a blind eye to our suffering."

"And what am I to do? Offer you aid? Loath I admit it, my country is not as wealthy as the others, there is very little I can help you with."

"I would like to seek refuge, along with my people, on the Land that once housed the strongest Clan the shinobi world has ever seen."

"You dare." The man hisses, standing up and shoving away the mat, causing the guards to draw their swords.  
Harry almost smiles in triumph when their eyes lock. 

"Yes I do."

 

 

"Legilimens."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, I'm like "I really need to finish this soon."   
> Hope you enjoy the chapter.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things are falling into place.....

Harry returns with the biggest shit eating grin Gaara has ever seen on anyone's face when around him.

  
"I'm guessing you were successful?" Ichigo inquires, not a moment later.

  
"I ran into a bit of a challenge." Harry says, smirking a bit.

 

  
" ** _Legilimins." He whispers, immediately slipping into the older man's mind. He snatches the fury and disdain the Daimyo feels towards him and turns it to curiosity, then, plants a few but strong compulsions in him._**

**_He contemplates doing more, hiding the compulsion implants and brain scatter better, good enough even to fool skilled mind walkers like the Yamanaka, because Konoha will undoubtedly investigate this, but his instincts go haywire._ **

  
**_As he slips out of the daimyo's mind, only years as a shinobi have him ducking. A sword flies over him, cutting off more than a few strands of his shoulder length green hair._ **   
**_"Petrificus totilus." He says, watching as brown ropes conjured from the palm of his outstretched hand wrap themselves tightly around his assaulter._ **

**_He isn't the only one coming after Harry though, many samurai leave their posts from around the room to come at him. Seems he'd made a grave error by saying out an unfamiliar word in front of so many paranoid bastards who hate shinobi._ **

  
**_He summons a wind clone, which immediately apparates away with the order to stop anyone from sounding the alarm._ **   
**_"Arresto momentum." He chants, using a spell Mrs. Weasley had often used to stun insanely fast moving doxies around the Burrow. It works like a "charm", (pun intended). "Obliviate maxima." He chants again at the petrified men. Grabbing ahold of the memory of what just transpired and destroying it, he commands them to go back to their posts then turns back to the Daimyo, who is passed out on the floor because of Harry's abrupt departure from his mind._ **

  
**_"Eneverate." He chants non-verbally, awakening the man, this time, breathing a sigh in relief when he gets back the memories from his clone. Mission accomplished. Smiling at the Daimyo as he blinks confusedly up at him, Harry settles back on his knees. "Now, back to the reason for this trip."_ **

 

"I'm not even going to comment." Ichigo drawls after a particularly long sigh.

  
"Where to now?" Gaara asks.

  
"We're going to meet all the remaining Jinchuriki." Harry says, grin still on his lips.  
Ichigo raises a brow at him. "Of course you meant that. I'm guessing this scroll holds the coordinates to the rendezvous point?"

  
"Precisely." Harry says, smile dimming. "The world is in shambles and Takigakure may have been the catalyst to it. I can't emphasize on how much power the Akatsuki has at its disposal. I mean, already they have Son Gokū, Saiken, Kokūo, Shukaku and Isobu, so the other villages are very reluctant to oppose them. Yugara of Kirikagure disappeared into the night, Utukata, a fellow Jinchuriki thrown over his shoulder, unconscious. Iwagakure could not offer anything for their Jinchuriki had already been hunted and captured, same with Suna. 

Kumogakure and Konohagakure were not given a chance to do anything but consider giving their jinchuriki away."

  
"You know their names?"  
"Yes, Choumei was...is very chatty." Harry says, smiling with a sad tinge. "We only have three Jinchuriki remaining, myself excluded.....until further notice I guess."

  
"Where is the Nanabi?" Ichigo asks.

  
"I'm not really sure, but I know it will return." Harry says, leaping into the trees, the other two following closely behind. "I've been in correspondance with the others for years now, I think a few months after I was attacked and my team never survived. I was unable to contact them all unfortunately, while others flat out refused to associate with me, namely Yugara."

  
"That is a bit concerning." Ichigo says, slowly.

  
"I know. At first I thought Yugara was being an arrogant prick, but then some rumors had me thinking it had to do with a lot more than that.

  
Did you know that he made the Bloody Mist as it is today? He fed into the people's fears, turned them against each other and...its a large contrast, his behavior, from what his colleagues and even former friends described him to be before he became Mizukage."

  
"There's smoke there." Ichigo comments

  
"No, there's fire."

  
"He could've been a psychopath all along, playing the innocent and loving person that he was to his friends, family and acquaintances, until he was in a position that let him hurt people and not answer for it."

  
"He's right." Gaara adds.

  
"True." Harry says. "But where there's smoke there's fire, and we all know who's been more than happy to traipse around the elemental nations starting fires."

  
"We can't blame the Akatsuki for everything that goes wrong in the world."

  
"You're right." Harry tells Ichigo. "But they have more reason than anyone else to fuck the world up."

 

 

 

  
Death watches the shade of his Master lead his mortal associates to meet the other containers, feeling his lip curl in disgust.  
It's been a trying couple of what? Two, three thousand years now?

  
Watching his Master reduced to this...this pathetic little shade—Death scowls, turning away from the scene with a flourish of dark robes. 

Before the hallows were joined together, Death had only one thought in mind —collecting souls. It never mattered how he did it, evidence being in how he'd so artfully tricked the Peverells into giving over their souls. But ever since he'd gained a Master, feelings that were inaccessible to him, hate, love, annoyance, disgust, he felt them, something he was sure had to do with the bond he shared with his Master. Over the years, he'd met a number of foul beasts and the reaping of their souls had been nothing short of satisfying, to say the least.

Harry Potter had always been marked, even before Tom Riddle had pointed his wand at him and uttered the two forbidden words. Fate had deemed it so.

When the hallows had been joined, Death had patiently waited for the day his Master would join Him in His realm. But the bond that had joined the two of them had made Him much more aware of mortal time and how it passed. And oh did it pass ever so slowly.  
His Master had suffered, but Death had done as much as he could to fix him. 

  


Years after he'd left his home world for another dimension, not even universe, Death had been ready to groom him into being his Master, his true Master, and it had worked for some time. But then, there were betrayals, some more betrayals and even more betrayals that had touched even Death's unsympathetic heart, and his Master was here. Stuck fighting for mortals who would no sooner betray him when they found out just who he was.

  
Death will be waiting, patiently.

  
His Master will return, he always did. And this time he will take his Master somewhere where he will really flourish. A world much more terrifying than this one and Death will watch as His Master fashions it to his own liking.

  


  
All that is left is for his Master to find out who he truly is.  



	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time skip  
> We get a glimpse of an almost bright future

  


With a dizzying swirl Harry has the three of them a little ways from the set coordinates he'd given his (Harry doesn't really know what to call them) friends?...

Ichigo leans forward, a little green, but Gaara flat out falls over, looking very green.

"Sorry about that." Harry says, pulling Gaara up to his feet. "Still haven't figured out how to not make whoever I'm bringing with me sick."

"Its a small price to pay for all the chakra we saved." Gaara says, wiping spittle from his mouth.

"Good point." Harry says, sending out a pulse of chakra to the surrounding. He spots six chakra signatures just up ahead, west of their position. His guard goes up a bit, because there are two more people than they're supposed to be, but he can tell from their chakra signatures that they're just pre-teens. "Let's go."

 

As they glide through the trees, Harry wonders, when Choumei will return. It bothers him that Death had been so crafty. He doesn't know why, but he feels like that's not how the being usually is. Harry doesn't even know when they got to speaking terms, (because, hello, this is Death we're talking about) but he's learned to go with the flow with things that involve his past. He doesn't know what happened to him, that's a fact, its the greatest mystery of his life now that he's given up on getting back home. He just...he gets really apprehensive when he thinks about finding out just what happened. He feels like the floor will be pulled out from under his feet if he's not careful.

"Hatake-san, its great to finally meet you."

 

 

 

A lot happens in the years that follow. The Akatsuki goes dormant in activity but the five Great Nations, they kinda fall apart, a little.

Konoha briefly goes into a civil war with more than a few Clans being unimpressed with Danzo's reign. The opposing Clans loose ofcourse, Danzo has his roots far deeper in the village than even Orochimaru imagined and the survivers are cast out of Konoha. The incredulity that everyone in every nation feels is on another level. Its just simply not the wisest move Danzo could've pulled with war so clearly brewing on the horizon.

But the Clans prosper as they seek refuge in Uzu, which, becomes the new haven for shinobi and civilians without homes. Harry makes it that way, sorta, with a lot of help from everyone.

Things aren't perfect, but they aren't that bad either. In fact, Harry kinda has a perfect little world of his own.

"I can't believe this." Harry says, his hand running down a slightly hairy, sculpted (<insert crazy fangirl screech) chest.

Shikamaru snorts, his hands tucked underneath his head, whilst he lay on his back "What?"

"I'm in this situation again," Harry groans "with the age thingy putting a huge damper on things."

"I'm not Tsugaro." He drawls, "I'm the younger one this time around."

Harry slightly smacks his naked chest. "Your mum is gonna have my head when she finds out. She's probably going to think I seduced you under the table every time she invited me over for dinner."

"Seduced me under the table? That doesn't even make sense." Shikamaru says, incredulous laughter bubbling in his chest.

"Everyone knows I work in mysterious ways." Harry sits up, shrugging off the blankets and walking up to his wardrobe for a new change of clothes. Shikamaru, unabashedly, enjoys the sight of him moving around in nothing but his skin. "I know that look." Harry says, when he glances over.

"Please?" Shikamaru asks.

"You're insatiable."

"Only because you're a sex god."

Harry throws his head back and laughs out loud. "Thanks for the compliment." He puts on underwear and white shorts and t-shirt.

"I mean it. I haven't had this much fun since the academy days when Chouji, the others and I used to play ninja."

"Ew." Harry says with a grimace.

"I don't mean it like that. I'm just saying that," he slips out bed, walking up to Harry and curling his arms around him. "Its hard to muster up energy for anything these days, it's always such a drag. But when I'm with you, I feel more alive, more complete somehow."

Harry doesn't meet his eyes. "I thought we weren't supposed to fall in love."

"We?" Shikamaru asks, tilting Harry's chin until the shorter male is looking at him.

A knock sounds at the door, interrupting whatever Harry would've said. "I-I have to get that."

He walks out of the room, leaving Shikamaru to dress up.

"Naruto, you're back from the mission." He says once he opens the door.

"Yeah." The sunny blonde says, smiling. "You should probably take a shower Fū-chan, you stink of sex and," he sniffs, his smile turning into a foxy grin. "Shikamaru, that sonava bitch. Wow, I'm actually jealous he was able to bag a bomb like you."

"Don't let Sasuke or Sakura hear you say that. I don't wanna to deal with your scary possessive wives." Harry drawls.

"I actually came by for a reason, other than to verify a rumor of course," Naruto says after a brief stint of booming laughter. "The council's got a meeting scheduled in half an hour."

"Thanks a lot Naruto. I should probably head there right now."

"The shower?"

"No one besides the Inuzuka have a nose as good, if not better, than yours. I'll take my chances. Ja ne."

Naruto walks into the house, going to the kitchen and isn't really suprised to find Shikamaru there.

"So he's gone?"

"Yeah, council meeting. Although he seemed pretty happy to leave without so much as a goodbye. Trouble in paradise already?"

"We're not..really official."

Naruto raises a brow. "Why the hell not?"

"He's uneasy about something that he won't tell me about." Shikamaru says with a shrug.

"That's...troublesome." Naruto says, with a grin.

"Very much. How's Sas-gay and Samurai?" He asks, changing the subject

"Hey, don't let them hear you say that." Naruto says, pouting playfully. "They aren't very nice when they're both angry."

"Uhuh" Shikamaru says, eyeing the blonde skeptically. "Naruto, you’re always making them angry. The last person who should be complaining about their behavior is you…unless.” Shikamaru’s look turns sly. “I bet you have the greatest make up sex ever."

"Believe it!"

Shikamaru almost falls over laughing. "I can't believe you're using those words as a sexual innuendo. That used to be part of your nindo."

"Yeah, well...times change and people do too." He says, mood dimming instantly. Shikamaru's smile dims as well.

"You've changed a lot Naruto. Maybe even more than anyone I know."

"Yeah well, it's hard to keep up that optimism when the world is at the brink of war partially because of me. And I've just seen a lot of messed up things Shika. The world isn't that bright place I used to think it was."

"Hey, if you lose hope, who else is gonna be left that believes? Naruto, keep on having faith, okay man. We're all kinda depending on you."

 

 

"We've survived this long without their help, I say we ignore them." Ao says, just as Harry walks into the meeting chamber.

"They called this meeting for a reason and I'm sure it has nothing to do with them helping us. Times are trying and the Akatsuki has been far too inactive for my liking. We need to join forces and defeat them before they get even more power and strength than they've undoubtedly amassed whilst we've sat quietly on our asses licking our wounds." Shikaku Nara, sharp eyes passing over every single occupant of the room.

"We haven't just been sitting on our asses. We've done a lot of things Nara-sama." Harry says, taking his seat. "There wasn't much of Uzu when we came here, we've come a long way from the ruins that we found this place in."

"We need to focus on what needs to be done." Chiyo says. "Do we go to this meeting or not? And if we do, who will represent us? Who will take the mental and become our leader."

There's a brief moment of silence, with a few mummers here and there before Inoichi Yamanaka speaks up. "I'd like to nominate Hatake Kakashi. He's an impressive shinobi who was considered by the Sandaime as the next candidate for Hokage."

"I fully support Yamanaka-san." Akimichi Chouza says.

"I as well." Shikaku adds.

"What say you, Hatake-san?" Harry asks.

"I'd nominate Fū-sama." Kakashi drawls out.

Harry gives him a raised brow in surprise. "Um, why?"

"I feel like you've accomplished something no one in this room's been able to since the First Hokage. You've brought us all together."

 

It hadn't been easy to say the least and it had involved a lot of...threats from Harry, but everyone swallowed their pride because they were all shinobi without a place to turn to but Uzu and their petty village squabbles had been left behind.

"Look," Harry says, a frown making it onto his face. "I wasn't alone when I accomplished all of that. I've had a lot of help." He closes his eyes briefly, bringing his hands up to his face so he can perch his chin on it. "What I'm trying to say is that, a leader is someone who sends people out to their deaths, basically, especially in this world we live in. That's not me, I value every single life here...down to the most useless shinobi or civilian. I wouldn't, couldn't bear it if my decisions caused someone to loose they're life, my decisions alone. I can represent the village, but I feel like we've done a great job taking care of everyone together, as a team, with everyone having a say in all the decisions we make."

"Well put." Ao says. "If that's all, I'd like to go back to the academy. They're many things that need to be reviewed."

"I was actually meaning to talk to you about the current curriculum. I'd like to add a few more complex first aid classes to the current program." Harry says.

"And I have to get back to the research and development department. By the way Fū-san, my students are struggling with developing a particular matrix. I'd like you to come see them when you get the time. It’s been a joy working with the scrolls you provided us, but most of the time I can't read them. Uzumaki had their own Fuin matrixes that differ entirely from what's taught in the other villages. They're much more efficient, a single one covering many functions—"

"Tsuyujimo-san, I'll try to be with you as soon as I can. This meeting, who called for it and when is it scheduled?" Harry asks.

"I almost forgot you got in later than everyone. The Raikage, Ā asked for it. He wants the five great nations as a whole to deal with the Akatsuki once and for all, at least from what we assume."

"It’s scheduled for next week. There's an international ban on travelling for the next three weeks. Only Kage will be allowed to travel with their guards." Kakashi adds.

"Well, I'd like you to be part of the guard Hatake-san, as well as Gaara-san. Speaking of, has he returned from his mission?"

"Not yet, but you'll be notified when he does. I'll make sure to let him know you want to speak to him."

"Thank you."

They bounced around a few matters and how to sort them before everyone left the chambers. Well, almost everyone.

"Anything I can help you with Shikaku-sama?" He asks, a little nervous.

"Have I done something?" Shikaku asks, a brow raised.

Harry swallows. "How do you mean?"

"You're always nervous when we speak. I thought you got a kick out of our conversations."

"I do..."

"It’s not because of you and Shika, is it? Because I already know you two are boning."

Harry covers his face with his hands, flushing all the way down to his toes. Shikaku obviously said that with the intention of embarrassing him. "How did you find out?"

"Well, I know my son. And I know you too." Shikaku says, meeting his eyes. "Just promise me you won't hurt each other."

"I can't promise you that. But, I'll try my best not too."

Shikaku nods at him and leaves. When he gets to the door he turns around and gives Harry a short glance. "He made a good choice picking you."

Harry sighs out in relief, leaving the room quickly after Shikaku.

 

The sight that greets him outside is breathtaking. It always is and it never gets old. Uzushio is thriving, a beautiful island, filled with fountains around every corner, bright markets with trinkets and exotic spices, happy people and children about. Harry always feels a bit lighter when he hears children laughing.

"You look happy." Himari says, hooking an arm around his neck. "Shikamaru's dick that good."

"I'm leaving." Harry says, shrugging her arm off.

Himari snickers. "Wait, wait. A couple refugees got in today."

"Have the Yamanaka tend to them. I'll go tinker with the island seals."

"Okay." She says, sounding cheerful.

  


  


Keeping a secret in a shinobi village is impossible, Harry thinks with an eye roll.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello readers! it's been while. I tried updating last week from my tablet, but I screwed up and deleted chapter one. I have no idea how ill fix that so if anyone has any idea how, please tell me! I'm like legit begging (^-^). I hope you enjoy the new chapter. i'm planning on wrapping up the story soon, as I'm almost always free because i'm done with my 1st year of Uni. PLease, again, comment! I want to hear your input!


	26. Chapter 26

"We've got another batch from the Hidden Leaf." Himari says in greeting.

"Why hello there friend? How're you? I'm doing great." Harry drawls.

"Fū." Himari says, exasperated. "I know you're nervous and shit, but you agreed to doing the job. Step up for once."

 

"We both know I've done a lot of stepping up." Harry says with pout.

"Those were mostly combat situations." Himari says with a sigh. "Look, you're keeping all of us safe and I can't thank you enough for that. But this is something you have to do. You promised."

With one last put out sigh, which doesn't really do a good job of hiding just how nervous he is, Harry apparates to the east gate harbour to watch as the newest refugees come in from the mainland.

"The tetrahedron seal is ready." A wind clone says standing next to him. "The others have duplicated it almost sixteen times so we'll be able to have multiple interviews to finish this off as quickly as possible."

Harry nods in appreciation, for the thousandth time silently thanking whoever came up with the bushin concept. He looks behind and gets lost in his thoughts at the sight of Uzu. There are a very few things that needed to be rebuilt.

 

Even though Uzu had been nothing but a patch of land with a few barely standing buildings, it had been brought back to its former glory just a few months after they had taken residence on the island. There were seals almost in every corner, and it had taken weeks, most filled with sleepless nights, for Harry and every other Fuin specialist in Taki's ranks to decipher just what they were.

 

Tatsuo, a junior member of the research and development department's Fuin division had made the discovery, by a fluke if anyone cared to ask him. The island had a multitude of seals that formed a barrier strong enough to hold off an attack, giving the islands inhabitants enough time to prepare proper defense and assault.

Every building's foundation had an array of seals, some were pretty hard to find as not everyone put them on the floor, which, if enough chakra was siphoned into, could actually reform the building.

 

They were pure genius, Harry would've never come up with them by himself. Taki would've never fallen if that were the case. And the tetrahedron seal of course, a simply brilliant mechanization that was pure Uzu originality. The seal hadn't been working, but with enough effort they'd gotten it running in full swing.

 

This complex seal was probably tested over a long period of time, most likely on former Uzu prisoners. It could detect the slightest abnormalities in chakra flow, which usually indicated genjutsu manipulations. It could also sniff out secrecy seals, compulsion seals and a multitude of other things like genjutsu blocks for example. Luckily Harry has it at his disposal.

 

No one unsavory can sneak their way in without him knowin— Someone clears their throat, prying Harry forcefully out of his thoughts.

 

"Nara-sama, Yamanaka-sama, Akimichi-sama." He greets the three clan elders, having seen their faces in the bingo book.

 

"Takikage-dono." They say in unison, bowing to their waists. Harry flushes beet red, going a bit unsteady on his feet as he raises his hands defensively.

"Woah woah!" He says, a bit too loudly, wincing in sympathy when it startles some of the children. "I-I'm not the Takikage."

 

Inoichi Yamanaka frowns. "They said we'd be meeting the leader of this village." 'Well, see the thing is—"

 

"Don't listen to what he's saying." The ever quiet Gaara interjects from his side, standing a few inches taller than Fū (why all these short shits are becoming taller than him, Harry can only wonder). "He'll deny it, but we all seek his guidance. His efforts, mostly, are what's keeping everyone in this village safe and content. He is our leader, unofficially though, as the village is still establishing itself."

"Gaara of the Sand." Shikaku Nara says, suspicious brow raised. "We thought you...fell at the hands of the Akatsuki."

"I thought both of you did, honestly." Inoichi Yamanaka says.

Harry rolls his eyes when Gaara praises at him yet again. It's honestly embarrassing (and getting old pretty fast)

 

"Before you're let any further into the village, could you please step onto that seal in an orderly fashion." He addresses everyone. "Parents can go with their infants if they aren't comfortable with the brief separation. You are all required to stand there for a minute before moving on to that hall." Harry says, pointing the village hall which was a distance away. "You will find refreshments and medic-nin ready to give you any treatment for wounds or sicknesses attained on your journey here."

 

They look stunned by his hospitality. "Move along." A clone says, driving everyone into action. Harry keeps a close eye on the two seals nearest to him. Its then, as a former konoha civilian shinobi steps onto the tetrahedron seal and its lights up a violent red does he take action.

 

The shinobi is incapacitated before he can do anything As if the fallen shinobi is an unruly puppy, Harry hooks him by the scruff of his collar and pulls him aside. He'd rather not do it where so many people can see, but honestly his plan ended with him catching the imposter.

"Legimens." He whispers, slipping into the mans mind. He comes out with a name at the tip of tongue and a snarl curled on his lips.

 

"Danzo."

 

"That's Hokage for you, insolent brat." The man says, face clear of whatever derision or hate he feels towards Harry. He's managed to uncover all Danzo's attempts to infiltrate Uzu after all.

"Please." Lord Mefune pleads. "We aren't here to fight but to discuss a common enemy."

 

"Those damn Akatsuki scum have captured my brother." Ā says, banging the semi-oval table they're seated on.

 

"You should've let Killer B remain in Uzu. He would've been safe like the other Jinchuriki." Gaara says, jostling his sister Temari out of the state she'd been locked in ever since she saw him.

 

Harry isn't really surprised she's the Kazekage. She'd come off as strong from whabout her. And she is a member of the infamous Kazekage clan.

"This is a meeting for Kage, brat." Onōki says, annoyed.

 

"Am I not allowed to let my opinion known as well? Seeing as I'm not a Kage either." Harry drawls out.

"Don't play stupid with me boy, you know exactly what I'm talking about." The Tsuchikage says, even more annoyed.

"Funny—"

"Enough!" Ā shouts, bringing his fist down and the table again, leaving the thick timber with multiple fractures. "That is not what we've gathered here for. We need to get rid of those damn Akatsuki scum, especially Itachi Uchiha!"

 

Sasuke's brow twicthes at the sound of his brothers name. Why he's with the company, Harry still doesn't know. He's been stewing under a black cloud since he'd joined them and Harry could bet his arm and leg its probably got something to do with Naruto.

"I agree with Lord Raikage. We need to get to the point of this meeting."

"Forgive me." Harry says, internally admitting he'd been a bit childish. "My guard has as much voice in this as I do. In Uzushio—"

"Let's get on with the meeting, shall we?" Danzo cut in. "It seems the Akatsuki has resumed activity."

 

"Clearly," Onōki says, giving Danzo a withering stare. "we've established that."

"Can everyone take a moment to grow up." Temari Sabaku says. "Otherwise we'll be stuck here the whole day without making any progress."

 

"I agree with you Kazekage." Mei Terume says. "You're all acting childish which is unbecoming, especially because you are the leaders of your people."

"Back to our agenda." Mefune says. His jaw clenches, stern eyes passing over everyone in the room. "I commence the second Kage Summit."

"Why are we here Raikage?" Onōki asks. "My shinobi have gathered Intel on the enemy.

They have at least a hundred thousand strong and as we speak are preparing for a full frontal attack on all of our villages."

"My troops have discovered as well, that with the help of Orochimaru of the Sannin," Danzo says, voice heavy with disgust, "they have reanimated shinobi in their ranks. He used a forbidden jutsu that was partially developed by the second Hokage, my former sensei, to achieve this."

Harry wonders how he came about such information, silently though.

"Is that why there's been complaints of grave robbing all across the Five Great Nations?" Harry asks.

 

"It didn't make sense to us before, but now it does." Ā says, gravely. "I suppose you want to propose an alliance? A gathered force strong enough to take down the enemy?" Onōki says, a small frown on his face.

"Yes. Apart, our forces will be decimated. But together, we have a high chance of taking them down." Harry snorts.

"I'm surprised by your sudden change of heart. Weren't you all willing to bend to their demands not a while ago."

"Its been three years," Temari says, " and we can't exactly sit by idly while they plan on attacking our villages even though we do not own any Jinchuriki." She says this, casting a quick glance to her brother.

"You do realise this would've happened whether you gave us to them or not." Harry growls.

"You have to understand that we could never put the life of one person over that of thousands. Many innocent people would've suffered if we hadn't done what we were told to do." Danzo says.

"Who are you to decide who's to live and who's to die?" Gaara asks, so suddenly that it surprises even Harry.

"We are leaders, Kage. We make these tough decisions." Onōki says, as if that's enough of an answer. "You..." Gaara trails off, his voice cracking. Harry can almost feel his grief. "Who gave you the right to decide who's innocent and who's not. This is all your fault." Sasuke says. "All of this. Its because of the decisions you've made, the petty squabbles and the endless grudges."

 

"You took us, made us into Jinchuriki. Then you ignored us, treated us as less then human, you shunned us and hated and feared us. You used us, took everything until we had nothing to give. Then you cast us aside as if..as if we meant nothing, had no value. You so easily give up our lives..." Harry trails off as well, feeling a bit overwhelmed by his grief and anger. "You don't get to not consider us amongst those innocents. We didn't beg to be Jinchuriki, we were forced. This world is as dark as it is because of the choices our predecessors made, the choices some of you in this room have made. This coming war is your fault."

"Well put." A new voice adds, with a drawl Harry's dreaded to hear again.

 

"Madara." He growls. "What do you want?" Everyone is on guard, chairs abandoned.

 

"I'm sad I wasn't invited to your pathetic little meeting." He mocks. "I couldn't not intervene. You are planning my demise after all."

"Say your piece and leave...unless you want me to reintroduce you to unimaginable pain again." Harry says, smirking in forced amusement (he doesn't know if Madara can see right through him, but the subtle step back he takes is more than enough of sign of how wary Harry makes him).

 

"Three Jinchuriki remain. The other Tailed Beasts have been captured and sealed away."

 

Harry smirks, a real one now. Mockingly, he asks

"Any luck finding the Nanabi?" Something about Madara screams malicious satisfaction in the next moment.

"Yes, actually. It happened a little over two years ago, a very hush hush thing really. It appeared out of thin air, docile, and confused. Subduing it barely took any effort." Harry's vision glazes over with a red tint and when it clears he can see the outside of the snowy mountain.

 

Half of the Twin Wolf Maw mountain is nothing but rubble and rocks. He can hear men crying in agony and dispair below. He wordlessly summons dozens of clones with the instruction to heal the wounded and help the trapped. Madara is untouched, having fazed through whatever it is Harry tried to hit him with.

 

"Your power puzzles me." Madara says, head tilted in almost child-like curiosity. "You should'nt be able to do half the things you do, and yet..." He trails off, more wary of him then he'd ever been. The others are giving him wary looks as well, with the exception of Gaara, Sasuke and Kakashi (he's been awfully silent).

 

"Your piece." Harry spits out, venomously.

 

"The reason I've sought to gather all the Tailed Beasts is because together they will give me enough power to put the world under a genjutsu, a never ending dream of peace. Project—."

 

"Bullshit. Project Bullshit." Kakashi drawls out. "Your agenda, your genjutsu, its smoke in air. It'll blow away because its not true. We" he says, pointing at everyone in the room, ", our comrades, we'll all take you down Uchiha. So fuck off, go back to the little grovel you've been hiding under and scheme and plan or whatever. Because we're coming for you."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My country's having its first ever Pride Parade and I'm not gonna be there. I'm so devastated. My sister's having a ceremony this weekend and everyone's celebrating the child she's about to bring into the world. Its the last place I wanna be, no offence to my sister, but I can't even sneak away. Its all the way on the otherside of the country.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter.
> 
> And I'm sorry that my editing was shit, I've fixed the problem and am promising to wrap the story up pretty soon. I've dragged it on for it bit too long now.


	27. Chapter 27

Madara doesn't stick around long enough after Kakashi's little speech. Harry can guess that he's frustrated that he hadn't gotten the rise out of anyone (but Harry) about the coming war. But before he leaves, he gives Harry a wary, but searching look, then steps into the swirl he appeared out of.

"What sort of power do you posses?" Onōki asks, boldly, although there is wariness in his eyes when he regards Harry, unlike before.

"Just chakra." Harry answers shortly, eyes on the big hole on the wall.

"There wasn't a single spike in your chakra signature when you launched that attack." Mei points out.

"Ambient chakra, or Nature energy if we're being simple. I only need a single thought..." He trails off. No one asks anything further, a kekkie genkai, a special technique even, is a closely guarded secret, and its an unspoken rule amongst shinobi not to flat out ask about it.

"What do we do now?" Temari asks.

"The Akatsuki know we're coming for them. There's no need to keep things moving slow. We need to present the idea to our Daimyo and start preparing." Harry says.  
"We need an effective system to begin with, a leader of sorts." Onōki says.

"And I suppose since you're the oldest you think that it will be you? Tell me Onōki, was that really Uchiha Madara?" Danzo says, mockinging his age.

"Whether it was or wasn't, the name in itself has caught our attention. It will strike fear in the hearts of every shinobi across the land." Mei says solemnly.

"I degress." Harry says. "A name is just a name, no matter how great. We're shinobi, we've always persevered above any challenge."

"I think we should get to picking a Leader." Temari says.

"There's no need for that, I'll —" Ā is cutoff.

"Since I'm the only person in this room who isn't biased," Mefune says, looking as if he'd rather be anywhere else, "I'd like the appoint the Leader of the shinobi alliance."

"Makes sense." Mei says.

"Almost all of your villages have something in common. You do not possess any Jinchuriki."

Ā bangs his hand on the wall. "You can't be serious!"

"I'm dead serious. You haven't done a good job taking care of your Jinchuriki, evidence being in how none of your villages have any left."

"So you're giving this one to Uzushio? They don't even have a Leader." Mei says, matter of factly. 

"Mmmh, yes. But I've thought of every possible situation, and Uzu is the best option. The Raikage is too passionate," Mefune says looking at the cracks on the table and wall, " and that may be a good trait for a Leader to have, but he has a personal vendetta against the Akatsuki, which may not go over well for the men under his command.

Mizukage, your country is still unstable as you recently became the Leader. Not forgetting that there are rumors swirling around that your former Mizukage, Yugara, was under the Akatsuki's control. I can't really trust your village, and neither can I trust yours Tsuchikage. Its no secret that you've used the Akatsuki before."

"That was only because villages such as Konoha and Kumo were producing formidable shinobi in a short span of time and taking high profile missions from my village! Its not even my fault that my shinobi couldn't amount to theirs, everyone has made it their life's mission to destroy all kekkie genkei users in Iwa."

"That is no excuse." Danzo says.

"You're not fit for the position either Danzo. Your village isn't doing so well, the people are protesting against the treatment of their protecters, and let's not mention that you lost five very influential clans a few years ago. You're drowning under the pressure of having few shinobi in your control, and everyone else against you.

 

"I wouldn't protest much against having the Kazekage as leader, but since Suna doesn't have a Jinchuriki, the position falls on Uzushio."

"Their village is in as much disarray as all the others." Ā growls.

"I'm sure that'll be resolved in no time."Mefune says, looking at Harry.

"I can't believe this. He ripped a hole in the wall and probably killed some of your men." Ōnoki shouts. "He's just as bad as the Raikage."

"Enough." Mefune says, barely shouting. "The decision is final."

"Did anyone else take note of the that Madara said three Jinchuriki remain?" Harry asks the room at large.

There's a tense moment of silence where everyone tries to decide which topic is most important.

"What did he mean?" Mei asks, a contemplatory look in her eyes.

"It takes three days to seal a Tailed Beast when all ten members of the Akatsuki are present." Gaara says. "I remember just as much. How long ago did Uchiha take your brother?"

"Its been a week." Dariu says, speaking for the first time.

"Your brother is definately alive, probably not even in their custody." Sasuke says. "Have you tried looking for him or did you assume he was already dead?"

"There is a great possibility that he escaped. Killer B is a master of evasion, even I can admit it." Harry says. "I can help you track him."

"That won't be needed. Now that I know there's a chance he could be alive..." Ā trails off. "We need to leave immediately. We can speak further using messenger birds. But don't think for one moment that I agree with your decision Mefune."

 

 

"So," Harry starts, "why are you here Sasuke?"

"Naruto and I fought."

"Sakura again?" Kakashi asks.

"She's pregnant." Sasuke hisses out, sharingan going off subconsciously.

"What?!" Harry exclaims. 

"My thoughts exactly. Gods help me, I knew this whole shit was a bad idea."

"What're you gonna do?" Gaara asks

"I suggested we kill it." Sasuke says, maliciously.

"Thats a bit...extreme." Kakashi says.

"A war is no place for a child or a pregnant woman." Harry says. "Sakura is one of our best medics, she can't sit this war out."

"You're agreeing with this." Kakashi asks, incredulous.

Harry rolls his eyes. "Of course not. We'll just take the foetus out and keep it in sub-zero temperatures. Hopefully it'll be alive when we implant it in her womb again."

"Has that ever been done before?" Sasuke asks.

"Not really." Harry says slowly. "But I'm sure Lady Tsunade can figure something out."

"You know where she is?"

"She agreed to meet me in Gofu. Its a few miles east." He gives Kakashi a significant look. "I think its about time the Sannin came to Uzushio."

Kakashi gives him a searching look. "Are you still in contact with the hebi?"

"No, unfortunately. It seems the Akatsuki has given him something even I can't." Harry says, his look turning disapproving. 

Properly chastised, Kakashi looks away. Its not safe to speak of such matters, especially when Zstsu could be lurking about. 

"You know how Naruto is about things Sasuke. Just, give him an ultimatum. If he chooses Sakura, move on. Things weren't meant to be." Harry says, perhaps a bit bluntly.

Clenching his jaw, Sasuke looks away.

"Stop." Harry says, rasing his hand and looking around. "Looks like we're surrounded."

"Your sensory skills aren't as great as I've heard they are." Danzo says, walking out from behind a tree.

"Oh no, I saw you coming before you even thought of it. You're predictable old man."

Danzo scowls. "I can't let an inexperienced brat lead the whole shinobi world into a war."

"Don't fight us. You won't win." Sasuke drawls, unsheathing his sword.

Danzo scoffs. "You won't win."

"Do you think you can handle them?" Harry asks.

"Do you even have to ask" Kakashi says, pocketing his porno.

"Sasuke, we'll take the old man. I wanna see how far you've come with your training."

Said boy rolls his eyes.

 

"Sand Tsunami!"  
"Raikiri!"

 

"That must hurt. I hope they don't kill them..too hard." Harry says amusedly.  
"The insolence!" Danzo spits. "Wind Style: Air Bullet!"


	28. Chapter 28

The air bullets pierce through the trees, forcing Harry to grab Sasuke and apparate out of their range, which happens to be the Samurai Bridge.

  
"Annoying for someone that old, ain't he?" Harry comments.

  
"Hn" is Sasuke's answer.

  
"I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but Mr. Sack of bones is really strong. And I haven't even felt the full extent of his chakra."

  
"Okay." Sasuke says slowly. "What now?"

  
"You're going to have to outsmart him." Harry answers, matter of factly.

  
"Something I happen to be good at." Sasuke says, smug. "Is he going to be able to find us?"

  
"He's on his way here as we speak."

  
"Sensory type ninja then?"

  
Harry casts him a glance. "He was taught by the Second Hokage, the powerfulest sensor to ever live. The man could feel every individual shinobi in the whole of the Fire Country when he spread out his senses."

  
Raising an impressed brow, Sasuke asks, "Can you do that?"

  
"Nope. The senseory overload could turn me into a vegetable." He answers casually. "I'm sure as Danzo's sensei he taught him how to develop his own sensory skills, because at the end of the day, every shinobi has those skills. It's just not everyone who has the right tools to extend them."  
That bit is obvious. Harry is sure Sasuke learned of it when he was at the academy.

  
Feeling the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise, Harry grabs Sasuke in a bruising grip and ducks with him.  
Two wind enhanced shuriken fly over their heads, missing them by mere inches.

  
"I've worked hard to make it this far, watching on the sidelines as my village was weakened by the decisions made by Hiruzen. I will not let you jeopardize that by leading my people to their deaths."

  
"You're threathning a high ranking Uzu official. We won't take that offence lightly." Sasuke says, cocky as hell.

  
Danzo glares at him."Uchiha." He growls, venomously. "I should've nipped your bud before it grew. Treacherous like that brother of yours. A sacrifice was wasted sparing your insignificant life."

  
"A sacrifice?" Harry asks, discreetly reading Danzo's surface thoughts.

  
'His eye will assimilate perfectly with those I collected from his father and clansmen. Not as good as Itachi's but it will do. However, I have to get past that Taki brat. It'll be impossible if he can use that teleportation jutsu.'

"Who is Shisui?" Harry asks Sasuke, low enough that Danzo can't hear.

  
"My deceased cousin." Said boy answers confused. "How..."

  
"What sort of ability did his sharingan contain, the most lethal that is?"

  
"Kotoamatsukami." Sasuke explains monotonously.

  
"Sasuke, I need you to keep a level head in this battle. Some unsettling truths will be revealed." Harry says carefully, earning a sharp look from said boy.

  
"Does it involve my cousin?"

  
"It involves your whole family."

  
Sasuke blinks his eyes closed.

 

 

_**There's something incredibly peculiar about Sasuke's ocular cells. Harry's been trying for a couple months now to negate the adverse effects of using the sharingan, because now and then, the insufferable brat will suffer from eye strain (and forget to mention it).** _

 

_**But he's stumbled upon something that could potentially give the brat an advantage in battle with his older brother, because that is inevitable, despite Harry's foreboding warnings.** _  
_**There are numerous boichemical blocks found in Sasuke's cells, and from what little he knows about the Uchiha dojutsu, its growth and development is stimulated by a trauma of some sorts.** _

 

  
_**From what he can make out looking into the microscope, even though Sasuke's sharingan has all three tomoe, meaning its completely mature, it still hasn't quite reached its full potential.** _

 

_**There are actually more abilities to unlock.** _

 

_**Meticulously, he separates the cells into ten different slides. Its impossible to do any further with the amount he has.** _

  
_**The first slide he stimulates with chakra. There is no change, even when he increases the flow. What happens instead is the cells deteriorate.** _  
_**The pattern continues with the other slides, Harry mostly uses stimulants found in the pituitary system. Adrenaline is the only stimulant that causes a reaction, although it is miniscule, it gives him a bit of hope. He consciously ignores the fact that almost all the parts of the body react to adrenaline.** _

  
_**He pauses minutely, maybe he needs the help of a more experienced medic to completely unlock a new potential in Sasuke's sharingan, but with fine chakra control and adrenaline, Harry thinks he can cook something up.** _

 

  
_**Naruto has developed a new technique called the Wind style: Rasenshuriken. Its so volatile that it causes nerve damage on Naruto's hand, on cellular level, whenever he uses It. Kakashi-san may have coerced Harry into declaring the technique S-classed and forbidden, but no one needs to know Harry's actions were prompted by any coecern of some sorts. It was a great medical call, but Harry rather liked the destructive force of the jutsu and would've let Naruto continue using it if Kakashi-san hadn't low key threatened him.** _

  
_**Harry feels like its a very thorough technique and is impressed that a dunderhead like Naruto could create something so complex.** _

  
_**"What would happen if I enhanced my medical ninjutsu with wind style chakra, but without the intention of severing his nerves, instead with the intention of desolving those biochemical blocks? But the freaking Rasengan is a spinning ball of chakra, but Medical Ninjutsu is stagnant, calm. How the fuck will I make that transition?" Harry asks no one in particular. "I just have to find the right level of chakra and adrenaline or the right freaking combination of stimulants to remove the biochemical blocks, then remanufacture the properties into my medical ninjutsu..."** _

_**He trails off, sighing. It already sounded like it would be a shit load of work.** _

  
_**War is on the horizon and Harry needs as many capable ninja as possible.** _

__

(Having Miato Guy amongst Uzu's ranks is blessing in disguise. The man is annoying when he's loud, but Harry genuinely enjoys sharing a cup of jasmine tea with him.

He's a taijutsu genius, and through their many conversations, Harry was able to design a training regime and diet that could help not just Sasuke, but Academy students, Chunin and Genin drastically increase his chakra.)

 

  
When Sasuke opens his eyes, there isn't much change to his sharingan, except there's a black, very descernable thick ring joining the three tomoe.

  
"Fuū, Torune, take down the Uzukage." Danzo orders, his subordinates revealing themselves (Harry almost stumbles in confusion at the sound of his name).

  
"I'm not the freaking Uzukage." Harry says, going on guard.

 

Sasuke unsheathes his katana, a small wrinkle forming between his brow at Fū's words. He wonders a bit about them, but decides to deal with whatever Fū was saying when it comes.

 

  
He has to kill Danzo now, there's something about the man that makes him feel murderous, but mostly creeped out.

He falls into stance, but when Danzo continues to observe him, Sasuke dashes foward.

  
He throws a punch, a kick, then ducks, sliding away from a roundhouse. Bringing his hands in a tiger seal, he launches a fireball at the geezer, nicking his thumb and sliding its bloody surface across a summoning scroll neatly wrapped around his wrists. There's a short puff of smoke as two demon wind shuriken are released, and he grabs them.

Danzo leaps into the air to avoid the flame and Sasuke takes advantage of the opening, sending the two demon wind shuriken flying at him. Somehow, Danzo twists out of being cut, angling his body in between the two large shuriken flying towards him, one on top of the other, but its of small consequence.

Sasuke let's the shuriken move a few metres before pulling on the ninja wire he'd connected to them, forcing them to change the direction of their movement back to Danzo, whilst he quickly brings his hands into a ram seal. "Multi-Shuriken Clone Jutsu." He mumbles, watching as the two are multiplied by ten.  
He doesn't give Danzo a chance to dodge well, already flying through a set of hand signs. "Fire Style: Dragon Flame."

 

  
His skin crawls when Torune almost lands a hit on his shoulder. He apparates a few metres away, casting a critical eye on the two.

From what he's observed so far, Torune and Fuu are perfectly in sync with each other, Tokubetsu Jonin level judging by their steady taijustu form and chakra signatures, the sai expertly held in Fuu's palm and the disgustingly purple miasma floating around Torune's fists.(He needs to avoid that.)

  
"Surrender now and your death will be painless."

  
"I'm an S-classed shinobi." Harry says, slowly for them to hear. 'I'm not going to let a couple of Jonin get the drop on me."

  
With a half formed ram seal, he summons two clones with an extra kick of wind chakra. They nod at him, before launching at the two Root agents.

Torune instantly dispels the clone fighting him, but gets hit by a gust of concentrated (and powerful) wind. It knocks him off his feet, giving Harry a minute advantage. He sends a petrificus totilum at him, watching satisfactorily as the magical ropes bind his body.

  
His focus falls on Fuu, who has switched from hand to hand combat to mid-range attacks. The clone handles it well, taking advantage of Fuu's incomplete mastery of mid-range fighting.

  
He casts a glance at Torune, satisfied that he's struggling against the rope, before looking at Sasuke and Danzo.

 

  
One of Sasuke's arms hang limply on the side. There's a huge gash on his forehead and his left eye is swollen shut. His breathing is a bit laboured, but Harry thinks its because he has a bruised or possibly fractured rib, since his chakra is flaring brightly.

  
Danzo is no better, if not worse. He's bleeding—

  
He doesn't hear him coming, there's a rush of wind and blinding pain on his arm. He leaps away, clutching his arm where it hurts and regrets it not a moment later when the pain moves to the palm of his hand. He looks at it, and finds the purple miasma that was on Torune's hands growing on his own.

  
"Fuck!" He exclaims.

 

  
"I can't help being grateful you were there."

  
"I've always known you were a dimwit Jiraya." Tsunade says, sipping her sake. "I just didn't know you were a suicidal on top of that."

  
"I was trying to get information hime." Jiraya says, leaning forward. "You know how important it is."

  
"You aren't supposed to be sitting up. Aligning your spinal disks after regrowing some of them was no fun, baka. I don't want you undoing all my hard work." She growls, clenching the fist empty of a glass. 

Jiraya just grins, sultrily, before slowly lying back down. "It was worth it."

  
Tsunade snarls, adjusting her yukata (damn pervert) but is secretly grateful that the oaf can make perveted jokes in his condition.

  
"I'm glad you're back in the game hime. I never thought I'd live to see the day you could heal someone without your phobia getting in the way."

  
Tsunade bites the inside of her mouth, taking another sip of her alcohol, before talking. "It not really gone. The kid, Fū, he's got a jutsu similar to that of the Yamanaka. He... suppressed some things within me."

  
"Full of surprises, ain't he?" Jiraya says, amused.

  
"Full of surprises?" Tsunade repeated, eyebrows raised. "He sustained a whole village almost singlehandedly for two months, survived an extraction, provided sanctuary to the whole Five Great Nations, healed —"

  
"I get it, I get it. He's the second coming of the Sage of The Six Paths." Jiraya says, flippantly.

  
Tsunade pauses, "Couldn't have said it better myself."

  
"When is that kid getting here anyway?"

  
"Soon."

 

  
"Its time you fulfil your purpose, Nagato."

  
Nagato looks up from the scroll he was reading. "And what purpose is that Madara?"

  
The masked man walks out of the shadows and into the light of the large yet cozy study. "Peace."

  
"What am I to forfeit now?" Nagato asks, with a sigh.

  
"Your life."

  
That earns Madara a sharp glance. "Its time then?"

  
"Yes. Orochimaru is ready, all that is left is for you to play your part."

  
"Very well." Nagato sighs out, feeling dread in the pit of his stomach.

 

  
Madara leaves and Konan finally makes her presence known. Nagato knows she was there the whole time, but he'd let her gather her thoughts. "You're sure about this?"

"No." He says. "But it doesnt matter if im sure or not. This is bigger than me, its bigger than us. I admit, I'm a bit nervous, but its not that big of a deal. I've been aware this was going to happen sooner or later." 

Perhaps if they'd been as close and...normal like before, he would've told her how fighting Jiraya sensei had unsettled him, brought back thoughts of Yahiko.  He knows she's struggling with it it too, but he won't ask. 

  
"Alright." She says, not letting her true feelings show. Nagato knows she's devastated, but this is all in the name of peace. She is but one life, her feelings are inconsequential.

 

 

It's time to resurrect the real Uchiha Madara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. Sorry bout the infrequent updates. School is just too much for my little brain to handle. Im swamoed all the time. I hope you enjoy the chappie.


End file.
